Phase 2, Stage 1 Welcome Letter

The following is a copy of the Phase 2, Stsge 1 Welcome Letter as found on the e-learning Brightspace/D2L site for this class (please note that there are seperate sites for U Level students and C Level Students: 

Welcome! Today is Monday, April 6th, Welcome to Phase 2, Stage 1 of on line learning. Here is the place where you will find lessons, test material, assignments, journals, tests, and where you can contact me and submit your work. This is in place for the month of April due to Covid-19. As of right now, we are hoping to be back in the schools by May. Time will soon tell. You can contact me directly through e-learning but please also note that my e-mail is Rob.D’Alessio@cdsbeo.on.ca. It is very important to know the following: 1) In addition to completing the final exam, to be successful in this course you need to make sure you complete the culminating task, any work that is assigned or has been assigned up to this point. It all works out to at least one summative assignment per unit or 3 hours of work per week. You should also use the discussion board which we will probably begin using next week. If you run into an assignment that you think is too confusing, please ask me for an alternative assignment.

 

You may use the Remind.com app to get due date reminders sent to you and due dates/test dates reminders.    

 

I am working on a Semester Calendar (shows you how the term is divided) and the Course Checklist (lists all Discussions and Assignments, and the week/day each activity is due.  *The final date of the week due is the final date for submission of the activity.  Your first assignment is due this Friday and your first test is one week from today.

To be successful in this course, it is crucial that you complete all assignments and respect due dates.  We may make some adjustments to the checklist as the course progresses.  

Submitting assignments Send in assignments for an Activity as soon as the work is completed.  Submit your assignments electronically through the Dropbox for the course.  You can also e-mail. I will make every effort to have them marked and returned to you quickly, along with an updated Course Checklist with feedback and a grade for the assignment. There are parts within the course where you are directed to research and make notes on a topic, or to complete a journal entry.  You are expected to complete these; however, it is only necessary to submit them if indicated on the Course Checklist.   

Discussions There are many discussion topics listed throughout the course.  Please post comments regularly – your ideas and opinions are important, and consistent participation in the discussions is a good way of connecting with the other members of the class and reinforcing the course concepts.  I will also post links each week which are relevant to the course and which are meant to be conversation pieces.

Questions? Please do not hesitate to email or page me when you have questions, concerns, or problems.  I check email regularly, and I will try to respond as promptly as possible.  I am here to help you. This includes providing alternative assignments upon request if one of the assignments is too difficult. Lastly, please note that there is a culminating task in this course.

Good luck!

 

Getting started:

-Read welcome page

-click on course code

-read any posted announcements ("news items")

-check your e-mail

-click on "content" (top left)

-read "course information"

-read "student information"

-browse through the program and familiarize yourself with it. Please note that you will notice there are a lot of assignments on the e-learning site but you only need to do the ones that are assigned. You may request to do some of the ones that are not assigned for bonus or make-up purposes. However, if you choose this, you may have to spend more than the allotted 3 hours per week.

-you may begin working when you are ready.

-click on discussions and peruse through some of these. Remember, "discussions" do count (you can do as many discussions as you wish, the more the better for your learning skills and participation but refer to the course check list to know which ones and how many in each unit you are required to do).

 Check your mail. If you have an excessive amount of unread discussions and/or feedback, and/or e-mails, and/or have been using the instant messaging feature in inappropriate ways, you will be notified accordingly.

  

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If your file is too large it may be because it includes a video, here, you can use your YouTube account and send me the link or e-mail it to me.

 

When and if you find the dropbox not working, you can e-mail work directly to: Rob.D'Alessio@cdsbeo.on.ca

 

If you get a message saying the drop box is full, let me know.

The dropbox can only take a max of 5 MB so if a student already has something in their dropbox, that is biggish, they would not be able to upload another file to take it over 5MB.  

An option, if a student has large files that will not fit into the dropbox, is to use a fileshare website such as http://sendspace.com/

A site such as this is free, and allows a person to upload a file up to 100 MB in size, to their server. They are then provided with a link which the uploader sends to the person they want to have the file. The recipient then clicks on the link, and is given the opportunity to download the file. This works well - we have used it before in such situations.

 

Dropboxes typically are not cleared till the end of a unit. You can always e-mail me an assignment.

 

Please write (type) your name on everything, i.e. each word file, put your name at the top or bottom of page.

 

When logged on to the program, you will notice a green button in the top right. That is the pager button. You can use this to contact the teacher (or a classmate). It is similar to MSN though it is not instant chat it's more like instant e-mail. When you click on it you can select who you want on your list .