CloudDeakin guides

The Assignments tool enables students to submit assignments online, eliminating the need to mail, fax, or email assignments. Students upload their assignments to the appropriate Assignment. This tool also helps you track when assignments are submitted. Opportunities:

• a one-stop-shop for students to submit assignments
• option to setup an Assignment folder with a plagiarism check enabled
• access assignments, mark them and give feedback to students online
• access a record of who submitted assignments, when they were submitted, when they were marked and when they were available for students to access
• set up separate folders for separate tasks or for separate groups of students
• provide Assignment folders for group assignments to be submitted
• provide feedback to individuals, groups or to all students

Tips:

• Add a Grade item when setting up your Assignment.
• Set up a Turnitin (plagiarism check) assignment for students to check their work prior to final submission.
• Provide students with a preferred naming convention for the files that they need to upload to the Assignment. This may include their student number, surname and title of the assignment.

The Announcement tool enables you to communicate updates, changes and new information to your students quickly and effectively. Unit based announcement items appear in the Announcement widget on the Home page. Since this is the first page that the users often see when they access their unit sites, it is a good way to display pertinent information. Opportunities:

• introduce yourself to students
• welcome students to your unit
• direct students unfamiliar with the CloudDeakin environment
• alert students to an upcoming or recently past event
• make an announcement
• engage students by means of links to a video, blog, online resource
• use as the launching pad to the unit
• use as a one stop shop for information about the unit (via Quicklinks)
• provide positive feedback to students
• demonstrate to students via constant news changes – e.g. photos, quotes, URLs – that your online presence is regularly maintained and current.

Tips:

• Announcement is meant to be informative, relevant to many and worth reading.
• Keep it concise, relevant and up to date.

A Checklist is a way to highlight important or required assignments, readings or other items to complete. A Checklist may list all the items which need to be completed immediately or may have items appear sequentially once other items are completed. Opportunities:

• provide a list of tasks students need to complete
• present students with a visual summary of the requirements for a topic or assignment or unit
• assist students to find their way around the resources of your site
• break your unit down into more manageable sections
• better cater for individual learning needs by building in ‘extension’ activities or revision activities
• help students manage ‘due dates’
• ensure prerequisite tasks are completed before access to new ones is made available
• reinforce topic learning objectives/intended learning outcomes
• provide different groups of students with different tasks or sequences of tasks
• provide a week-by-week guide for students during trimester.

Tip:

• Set up your Assignments so that all tasks on the Checklist are completed before students can submit.

The Content tool enables you to create, edit, organise and delete modules and topics in your unit. Opportunities:

• use Modules and Topics to structure your unit resources
• have the choice of adding resources by:
• creating a new html file
• using an existing file in the site
• uploading a file from outside your site
• building Quicklinks into your unit topics
• reorder the sequence of your modules/topics as you build
• give yourself a complete linear view of how students will progress through your unit site
• use Reports to track student data regarding time spent in site and modules/topics visited
• use Manage Files to store and organise your files
• set Restrictions on your topic such as hiding modules/topics or setting release and close dates.

Tip:

• You can use the Instructional Design Wizard or the Site Builder as alternative means of building the structure of your unit.

You can set up a grade book that reflects your approach to evaluation. You control the grading formula used to calculate grades; what projects, assignments and tests are graded; how grade items are associated with other tools; when grades are released to users and what information they see. Opportunities:

• create a connection between your Assignments and/or Quizzes and your Grades
• create assessment task items and record student grades in your Grades area
• allocate different weightings to different assessment tasks
• assess students by means of different grade types
• release grades to students when available
• use the statistical analysis function to analyse your distribution of grades
• analyse the grades of individual students
• export grades to a spreadsheet.

Tip

• The Grades Setup Wizard allows you to choose Weighted, Points or Formula grades schemes.

The Quizzes tool is used to create, categorise, store, manage, publish and grade questions you set for your students to respond to either as reinforcement of learning or as formal assessment tasks. Opportunities:

• give students the opportunity to reinforce their learning
• reinforce to students the purpose and value of learning objectives or intended learning outcomes
• design a series of small quizzes to support sequential learning
• design quizzes as formal assessment tasks
• give students opportunities to complete multiple-choice quizzes prior to multiple-choice exams
• create, build and maintain a library of questions which can be re-used in other quizzes or units
• have data available (e.g. student grades, attempts, class average, numbers of responses)
• identify particular concepts which students appear to find challenging
• provide instantaneous feedback to students as they complete a quiz
• provide a variety of quiz question types so as to encourage different thinking styles
• compile and export quiz results to a spreadsheet.

Tips:

• Online quizzes, well designed, can be a very efficient way of assessing student learning and providing instant feedback. Feedback on learning is the essential ingredient of good assessment practice.
• Create your quiz questions in the Question Library so you can reuse the questions if required.
• When setting up a Quiz ensure you add a Grade Item and tick the box next to Auto Export to Grades, which will ensure that student submission results are automatically exported to Grades for release to students.

Self assessments allow you to create non-assessable quizzes with automated feedback which students can access in order to reinforce their learning. Opportunities:

• create quizzes which allow students to ‘test’ what they are learning
• assist students to reinforce their learning by interspersing self assessments into your Resources
• build in automatic feedback with your quiz questions and answers
• provide opportunities for students to determine what aspects of their learning they need to revise
• give students experience of doing informal online quizzes before tackling formal assessments
• provide opportunities for students to practice for multiple-choice exams.

Tips:

• Create your Self-Assessment questions in the Question Library so you can reuse the questions if required. Adult learners value the opportunity to check how well they are understanding concepts.

The Surveys tool creates surveys which allow you to monitor unit trends and opinions and assess student satisfaction. Opportunities:

• use as a learning activity for students
• survey students to determine preferred learning styles early in trimester
• use the results as the basis of a class discussion
• build into a hurdle requirement or Conditional Release sequence
• get feedback from students, with the option of anonymity if desired
• give instant feedback to students who respond to the survey
• search for and analyse results of a survey
• access summary aggregate data from student responses
• collate qualitative comments from students.

Tip:

• Create your survey questions in the Question Library so you can reuse the questions if required.

Zoom enables teaching staff to communicate synchronously with students online. Zoom allows you to talk online in real time; chat via text online; share applications, give presentations and most importantly the ability to record session. Recording allows students to access the session if they weren’t present or if they would like to hear it again. Opportunities:

• provides opportunities to communicate with your cloud-based students
• record the session and make it available to students who are unable to join the session

Tips:

• Set up the meeting room and choose a date and time that is suitable to yourself and your students. Do think about time zone differences if you have students from other countries.
• Provide instructions to students where to access the URL. This can be done by posting as a news item on your CloudDeakin site.
• If you are recording your session, provide instructions to your students where to access the recordings.