Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Wyoming
Brief WyoSakai Introduction:
Just Enough to be Dangerous
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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.
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.
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
Student Roster: Shows names
and e-mail addresses.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:
- Announcements
- Assignments
- Calendar
- Discussion Forums
- Forums
- Gradebook
- Mailtool
- Matrices
- Messages
- Resources
- Roster
- Site Statistics
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 |