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Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Wyoming

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The Sakai Environment and the Instructor Role

Your Sakai course comes with several default tools, provided as links on the left-hand bar, and you may delete those that you do not want to use.  For full administrative information, click the "Site Editor" link.  With its "Edit Tools" option at the top, you can add and delete course tools.

This document provides only the bare minimum of suggestions and references.  You are assumed to know the WyoSakai information from the "Introduction to Online Courses" workshop.  Also see the "Comparison of UW's Online Course Platforms" for more details in the context of other familiar products.  For assistance in a WyoSakai worksite, you can follow the Help button (blue question mark), or the "Help" link at the bottom for guidance on using the course tools.

Workspace (more details on Workspace and Written Materials)

You (and other pariticpants) have your own Workspace, a full worksite, when you are a WyoSakai user, instructor or student.  Faculty may choose to keep their teaching materials in the Resources of their own Workspace rather than the Resources of their course sites, especially if materials are shared among courses.

Providing Written Materials (more details on Workspace and Written Materials)

Syllabus

A syllabus can be written, uploaded (which makes it an attachment), or linked with a URL, using the "Syllabus" tool.  You can save a document written with this tool in Draft form.  Contents will be saved, but students will not see it until you post.  See editing details on Workspace and Written Materials.  You can trigger e-mail notification of posting and changes.

Resources:  Files and Documents of Various Types

Under "Resources," you can set up folders and files of materials in any form that the students can handle-- plain text, MS Word, HTML, PowerPoint, PDF, and other document types.  You can also include plain text entered into an edit window, or HTML, or a URL link to an external website.

Skilled users can click on the "Upload/Download Multiple Resources" option to set up a file browser connection directly to their local computers, in effect setting up a Sakai drive that enables drag-and-drop file transfer.

External Web Materials

The "Web Content" tool provides links to external web pages.

Lessons

Gives a modular presentation of materials as units, with subordinate pages and scheduling.

Citations

Add citations for your students in standard formats.  Under Resources, use the "Citation List" option.

E-Mail and Other Communication (more details on WyoSakai E-Mail)

To Add a Short Announcement to the Homepage: In the "Announcements" tool, choose "Add" to get a new blank announcement, fill out the Title and Body edit fields , and "Post."  See editing details.*

Mailtool:  For external (UWYO e-mail accounts).  Choose groups or individuals (and, optionally, add other e-addresses).  Currently deprecated; use Messages tool instead.

Messages:  For internal (course site) messages; optionally, messages can be sent externally.

Dropbox: For student-instructor pairwise exchange of non-graded material, like a journal.

Polls:  For a single question, type it in; be sure to add options for possible responses.

Blogger:  For individual logs.  Others can be viewed.
 

Student Records

Gradebook:  Maintains manually-added and automatically-added (Tests & Quizzes, Assignments) gradeable items.

Collaborative Work

Groups and Sections

Groups are defined via the "Manage Groups" link of the Site Editor, Sections in the "Sections" tool.  Students may belong to more than one group, and groups may cross sections (if sections are defined).  Groups and sections may be used to govern these tools:

Discussions

To carry on threaded discussions, which are like bulletin board topics, where students post messages when convenient ("asynchronous" communication), add the Forums (more formal, connected to Gradebook) or Discussion Forums (more casual, includes search) tool.

Wiki Tool

A wiki is for shared editing, with changes tracked.  The Wiki home page can be edited.  That's how it's done.  Just click on the Edit link, and add your own introduction, deleting the boilerplate text if you wish.  Add other pages.  You will need to learn a little Wiki markup language if you want formatting.

Assignments

You may describe assignments and accept submissions online.  Please note that the "Assignments" tool is set up to either (1) post (by instructor) and submit (by student), or (2) post, submit, and grade online.

Grade Records

Add the Gradebook tool.  A gradeable item appears as a column in the student roster.  You add it in the Gradebook home page Gradebook Items, with the "Add Gradebook Item" link.  Assignments and Tests & Quizzes (if created with the "Add item to Gradebook" option) make their own entries in the Gradebook, as noted in the "Grade Editor" column of the Gradebook Items page.

You can override a student grade that is already entered in the Gradebook:

• If the gradebook item was created in Assignments, you go through that tool to do it (click "Grade" under each student name).
• If the gradebook item was created in the Gradebook itself, go through the "All Grades" option and click on the "Detail" link.
• If the gradebook item was created in Tests & Quizzes, you go through that tool to do it (click on the "Scores" link and enter an adjustment factor, positive or negative, which will be added to the score).

Tests and Quizzes

To Write Quiz Questions

You can add a question with standard fields, depending on the question type selected, OR "quick-create" from text file with questions typed in forms as described in the page.

To Grade Non-objective Questions

For short answer and essay questions, go to the Tests & Quizzes entry for the assessment and click on "Scores" (link not visible until at least one student has submitted the exam).  Click on "Questions" and select the question that you want.  You will see all student answers on the page, with fields for your scores and comments.  This allows scoring of one question at a time, over all students.

Student Content

Send your students to the tools Profile and Preferences in their My Workspace site.  They can upload pictures and provide an introduction page (in Profile), and they can set notification options and so forth (in Preferences).

Last Update:  18 September 2008, by R. Hill