How to use the LMS to record evidence of your Teaching Practicum

Table of Contents
How to use the LMS to record evidence of your Teaching Practicum .............. 1 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 2 2. Login ................................................................................................................................ 2 3. Opening your My Workspace in the LMS ............................................................ 3 4. Adding items to your My Workspace ................................................................... 4 5. How to add a Blog ....................................................................................................... 4 6. Adding content to your Blog Page (Posting) ..................................................... 8 a. Preview your blog .................................................................................................... 15 b. Publishing your Blog page .................................................................................... 16 c. Sharing your Blog with your Mentor using the Share Tab ........................ 16 7. Uploading assignments and files to your workspace.................................. 20 a. Sharing your files and other workspace content .......................................... 22 8. Organising your files with folders ..................................................................... 23 9. Mentors ....................................................................................................................... 25

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1. Introduction
For your practicum work you will use the My Workspace within the Kirkby International College LMS. Here you can store files, upload images and videos and keep a practicum diary (Blog) which you share with your Mentors. This means that wherever you have the internet and access to the LMS, you will always be able to use your files and add to your workspace. This how to guide takes you through all the steps necessary to use the My Workspace and will be a ready reference guide for all the activities you can do within the LMS. You will be given the name of your Mentor in your session at the college. Your work should always be shared with your Mentor, Puan Sabariah (PPG Coordinator), Mr Saddasseevan (Practicum Coordinator).

2. Login
URL - http://50.56.83.109/collegelms Use your assigned username and password.

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3. Opening your My Workspace in the LMS

a. Click on Personal Desktop

b. Click on the My Workspace link

c. The My Workspace Screen opens

To add content to the My Workspace Screen, click on the Add New Item+

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4. Adding items to your My Workspace

a. Click on Add New Item +
A menu will open showing you some tools for adding to your workspace. You can: create a blog to share your experiences. This can act as a diary. add a folder to manage upload files upload files. These can be images, videos, documents, spreadsheets, presentations. add weblinks.

5. How to add a Blog

What is a Blog? The term Blog literally refers to a Web Log. It is the web equivalent of a diary tool. You can make quick entries of content and they will be automatically listed in order of date and by month. Our Blog tool allows you to write text and add images, add web links, add video and make comments. Your mentor will use the comments section to give you feedback on your practicum experience. For your practicum you will share your blog with your Mentor and the PPG and Practicum coordinator. You can share the content of your workspace with fellow students if you wish. People you share your content with, will not be able to delete or edit it. They can just view it or download it, if it is file. The next steps will take you through creating a Blog for your Practicum folio.

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a. Click on the Blog link under Add New Items +

Your will create a Blog site and within your blog you can create many 'pages' which are called Posts.

Add a title for your Blog site. Ask your tutor/mentor for your practicum for advice on what to call your blogs in the forum. *The forum is a good place to ask questions about setting up your workspace. Once you have filled in the details for your blog, click on Create Blog The blog is now created and in our example it is called, "Example My Practicum Diary"

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b. Managing your Blog Lets take a moment to look at the tabs, which allow you to manage your Blog. You can see:

a. Content tab where you add your postings and create the content for your posting pages. b. Info tab Where you can create a book mark link to your blog, add search terms (tags). These help users you share with to search for content in your blog. List the details of when the blog was created by and by whom. c. Settings Here you can see and edit your blog title and description Under Settings, you must enable Public Comments. This means that members who have access to your blog can add comments about on your content pages. This is how your mentors will give you feedback on your work. You should make sure this is enabled with a tick. If you have uploaded a profile picture, your picture will be displayed in your blog.

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Tick to allow Public Comments Your mentor will use this to give you feedback! Click the Save button when you are happy with the settings. You can edit the settings at any time by clicking on the settings tab.

Get creative: You can customise your blog as much as you want to. You can create your own banner image. You can ask for help with this through the forum. You can set the background colours for your pages and the font colour of your blog.

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c. Creating your first post

To add a posting, (your blog entry) click on the Content tab and type into the title box. Ask your mentors to help with your pages and content. You can post questions in the forum. Click on the Content tab and type in the title of your first Posting.

Type in the name of your article or page. In this example we will type in Lesson Planning. Click Add Posting to create your page.

6. Adding content to your Blog Page (Posting)

When you click on Add Posting your new page opens in the edit screen.

c b d

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This is your content page. The title you have typed in is displayed and a read box surrounds it. The red box means that this is a draft copy and only you can see it. Your mentor will not be able to see if when the red box is there.

a. Areas of the content page:

a. When you first create your page, it is in DRAFT format (surrounded by a red box). You can create your content in draft and publish it to be seen by your mentor when you are ready. b. All your pages are listed under the Postings box c. Tabs o Edit in this area you can edit, make changes to your pages. o Pages shows you how the content will look

b. Creating your content:

Click on the content bar

a list of options for content will appear.

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d. Insert Text
Click on the content bar Click on Insert Text

The text edit screen opens

Type in your text and use the edit tools to create text effects. When you have finished typing in your text, click on Save and Return

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Note : click on Save and Return Regularly to make sure you do not lose your work.

e. Formatting Tools
Tool Standard Text effects This gives options for formatting large blocks of text for. Try out the different options This makes text bold This makes text italics This underlines text This changes the colour of the text This creates a weblink. If you want to link text to a website click hightlight the text click xln and type in the web address of the website you want to link to.

str emp imp A xln

Example:

This is my page about lesson planning. I can write text in this area and edit it later. When I have finished writing, click Save and Return or Save. You can use the character tools to create effects in your text. str makes text bold, emp makes text italic, imp underlines text. You can use the A to highlight text. xln allows you to create links to websites in text. [xln url="http://www.wikipedia.com"]Highlight the text and click on xln[/xln] Type in your web address next to the http:// as show in the example. Note: The LMS times out every 20 minutes for security. Remember to click save and return regularly when you are writing your pages.

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f. Insert Image/Media
You can use this link to add images. Click the content bar again to add more content. This time we will add an image. Click on Insert Image/Media You can use the same link and process to add a video.

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Click on Choose file and browse for an image. You can add a title for your image. If you do not add a title, the image will be called its file name.

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g. Changing the size of the image You can set the size of the image using this feature:

Click on Custom Size Tick the "constrain proportions" box to keep the image the correct shape when you are changing its size. Type in the value for the size, here it is 200 /160 (pixels) Try different sizes to see how it works. You can always edit the image and change the size.

h. Check the layout of your page Click on the Page tab to see the layout of your page. If you want to insert video into your page, use the same Insert Image/Media link as we did to upload the image but upload a video file instead. It can be a *.avi, *.flv or *.mpg, *.mov. Try to keep your file sizes as small as possible.

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a. Preview your blog

To preview your blog and see what your mentor's will see: Click on Preview tab.

You can see the full blog page as your Mentor or anyone that you have shared with will see it. In our example we changed the background colour to green under the settings tab earlier on in this tutorial.

Click Back in the top left hand corner of the screen to return to your Blog Edit page.

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b. Publishing your Blog page

So far everything we have done to our page is in Draft. Our page is still surrounded in a red box and we can see the word (Draft) in the posting list on the right hand side of the screen. We have previewed our page to check that it look correct and now we can Publish the page. Make sure that you are in the Edit tab, and your page looks the same as the illustration below. Click on Actions and select Publish Posting. Your page content will now be visible to those that you have shared your blog with and the red box around our page should be gone.

c. Sharing your Blog with your Mentor using the Share Tab
This is a very important function and allows you to share your blog with your mentor.

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After clicking on the Share link this screen will open.

In the drop down box on the left you will see two options: Single User or All registered users. You MUST click on the Single User so that you can pick your mentor.

Click the ADD button

Note: If you click All registered Users then ALL the users of the LMS in Kirkby International College will be able to read your blog. If you add the wrong user, you can always remove them. You will be shown this later on in this document. The next step, is that you have to find your mentor to share your blog with. Use the next screen to search for your mentor.

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1. Type in your mentors login ID or name into the Search For box 2. Tick the box for search in system. 3. Click on the Search button Note: You will be given your mentor's name by the PPG coordinator/ Practicum Coordinator.

After you click on the Search button your mentor's name will appear below the search area. In this example we have searched for the name Ismail.

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Tick the login ID of your mentor, as shown in the example, and click the Share with users button at the bottom of the page. Your mentor is now shown in the list and they will be able to see your work and comment on it.

Note: You can always remove some from the list if you add them by mistake to your share list. Click the Remove link to take someone off your share list.

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7. Uploading assignments and files to your workspace.

Click on the Personal Desktop space and select My Workspace

Click on Add New Items + Choose File

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The File Upload screen opens

You can now browse for a file or multiple files uploaded as a zip. In this example we are uploading a single file for an assignment.

Click Browse Search for a file on your computer Click Upload File.

The file is now uploaded to your workspace. It is only available and visible to you. This means you can use your personal workspace to store files and access them anywhere. It works like a bit like DropBox. Use your workspace to store your work files privately.

When you are ready to share a file with your Mentor, click on Actions and select Share. Version 1.2 March 2014

a. Sharing your files and other workspace content

You need to share work with your mentors. For your practicum this is the only way that you should hand in work to your mentors. All other methods will not be accepted.

Choose Single User and search for your mentors name or login id You will be provided with your Mentor's name

Type in the name or login name of your mentor into the search box and click on search

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Click on Share with users They now have access to your work file.

Please make sure that you also add the following staff:Staff Name Puan Sabariah PPG Coordinator Sadasseevan Lecthumany Practicum Coordinator Login ID (search term) sabariah sadasseevan

8. Organising your files with folders

You can use folders to organize your files. You add them in the same way. Click on Add New Folder

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The Folder creation screen opens. Type in a name for your folder Here it is "My Files" Type in a description so that you know what is kept here. This is good file management.

Click on Create Folder

Once you have created a folder you can move files into it by clicking Actions next to the file and select Move. You can then choose where the file should be moved.

You will see a selection of folders in your workspace that you can move your file to.

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Select the folder and click on paste to move the file.

Note: You can create folders before you upload files. Create the folder, click on it to open the folder and then use the Action link to upload files to the folder directly.

9. Mentors
To view files and blogs of your teachers: Click on Personal Desktop and My Workspace. Click on the tab, Resources of other users.

Select the user from the drop down box and click ok. All your students/mentees will be listed in the drop down box if they have shared their work with you.

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Any files, blogs and weblinks will be available to you if they have been shared.

For example: Clicking on the blog link shows the users blog. Click on the page title for example Lesson Planning . You can click on the title in the main page or on the title link in the Posting box on the right hand side of the screen.

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Scroll down to the bottom of the page and add in your comments.

Use this area to give feedback to your Mentees on their progress and page content.

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