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 News
- The News forum will always be at the top of the Topic outline - you can't delete it - if you do it will reappear next time you login! It's purpose is to provide an area that tutors and administrators can communicate with students easily. When courses are created, the News forum is set so students cannot reply to messages. If you wish, you can change this, although it is better to create another forum for interactive discussions and student postings.
  News and general discussion forum Using www.learning.ac.nz Guide Book Resource
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| 1 |
 What is Learning.ac.nz?
- There are some common questions that tutors ask all the time... so we have summarised these in a LNZ Tutors FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) below.
- FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Resource
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| 2 |
 Students problems accessing courses
- New students will tend to encounter the same familiar problems when accessing your course - these are generally related to browser settings, security, and plugins (plugins are dealt with under multimedia below).
To understand the main computer setup problems, and solutions, read the Quickguide below.
 Quickguide to: checking computer setup file
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| 3 | A quick tour around the screen
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| 4 |
 Contacting students tutors and the LNZ helpdesk
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| 5 | Adding resources and activities
- Probably the most important part of the course!
By adding various resources and activities you build the content of the course.
- Adding a resource...
- Adding an activity... Resource
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| 6 |  Documents and resources
- Many of the documents you will want to use will be HTML files (the language of the internet). HTML documents are small and fast - ideal for online courses! Most word processing applications such as Microsoft Word can save documents in HTML format.
Your may prefer to use standard Microsoft Word documents. These can also be opened by most word processing applications, but are larger in size.
 - An HTML document file
 A test Microsoft Word document An Adobe .pdf file PDF document A PowerPoint presentation
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| 7 | Using the calendar
- Keeping students informed of course events, such as assignment dates, is vital.
If there is a public holiday, or your own personal holidays when you will be unavailable, students should know  The step-by-step guidebook to the Calendar below explains the operation of the calendar.
- A guidebook to using the Calendar Resource
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| 9 |
 Using multimedia in your course
- Multimedia is the description given to anything that contains animation, sound, or sometimes full video.
The multimedia book below contains lots of useful information and tips and tricks for using multimedia in your courses.
- Using multimedia Guide Book file
- Some multimedia test files in different formats.
 A .wav sound file- An .mp3 music file sound file
 A Flash animated clock file A .mov movie file (QuickTime) An .avi movie file- An mpg video file
- A wmv file - a Windows Media Video
- You can leave comments or suggestions for other tutors interested in multimedia below.
- Tutors multimedia discussion forum
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| 10 |  Assignments and Grading
- As with any course, you will want to give students assignments to complete. The word assignment is used here to represent assignments, assessments, tasks, projects...
There are three different types of assignment available:
- An online assignment (for an activity that takes place within the course - and allows student to upload a file for grading)
- Online text - this can be used as a Journal or reflective 'learning diary'
- An offline assignment (an activity for students to complete that does not directly involve working within the course - e.g. other reading or research or a presentation)
Using the assignment features allows you to distribute assignments and mark them electronically - students can view their grades from their Administration block.
- A guidebook for Assignments and Grading Resource
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| 12 |  Setting-up Chat rooms
- You may be familiar with chat rooms like Yahoo or AOL?
Within LNZ courses you have your very own chat rooms to talk to your students, other tutors, or even invited guests!
- Chat room set-up and use guidebook Resource
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| 13 |
 Creating Quizzes
- Luckliy, quizzes are really not very difficult to create
And students love quizzes as they feel interactive, can help in fun 'self-testing' exercises, and also be used to really challenge understanding.
The Book below explains how to create a quiz step-by-step.
- Creating quizzes guidebook Resource
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 Choices
- Choices can be used to take quick 'polls' or votes, and display the results as an easy to read graph.
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| 16 | Creating and using discussion Forums
- The discussion Forum is a vital communication tool in online e-learning.
Forums allow multiple-person discussion and interaction in an ordered asynchronous way.
- Creating Forums guidebook Resource
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| 18 |  Creating a course Glossary
- As a tutor, you can (should?) create a glossary for any words or special terms that may be new for students in your course.
This allows students to look up words they are not familiar with, without having to ask so many questions
- Quickguide to: Creating a Glossary Resource
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| 19 | Instant Messaging
- Instant Messaging has been made popular through systems such as Yahoo Messanger, MSN Messenger, AOL and Gaim. Some students really enjoy the opportunity to discuss matters with tutors one-to-one in real time. That said, it is important for tutors to effectively manage Instant Messenging facilities or it can become a distraction. The following document should help
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| 20 |  Finish!
- Congratulations, you have worked through the Tutor Guide to using Learning.ac.nz course!
You should now be familiar with most of the option available, and how to create resources. You have a lot of freedom in how you create and run courses, but the basic way to use the courses will be the same
So finally, let's test your knowledge...
Following is a quiz relating to all the parts of the course you have looked at - if you can get over 75% you are ready to start creating and running your course. If you get less than 25% you should perhaps work through this course again, as things you have missed could be really important once you start creating and running courses!
 End of course quiz
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| 21 |
 Lessons
- Lessons are a way for tutors to construct a small self-contained 'learning paths' for covering specific material. It is a way of analysing the response, and then 'branching' to different pages depending on the answer. It can be a very flexible tool, but takes tutors a lot of time to set-up!
We are writing a tutorial on this module, so watch out for News...
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