Welcome!

Working with Moodle
- Moodle is the course management system used by ECU for its online offerings. Most of the online courses at ECU are through Moodle.

- Moodle has two columns of information. The left column contains the course. The side column will have information on students' profiles, a calender, latest news and a search function for the various activities (Forums, Assignments, Books, etc.)

- The course will appear the best in the browser 'Firefox' which you can download for free from the web. Safari and Internet Explorer may change some of the settings which means that pages may be viewed incorrectly.

-Take this first week of class to try things out in the course. Along the way, I will answer any questions you might have. After some trial and error you will get the hang of it.

Moodle: A Course Management System (CMS)

The Course Management System (CMS) of this course is Moodle. Moodle software allows us to interact with each other and electronically manages all our activities. It's important that you take the time to try different features on this site and become familiar with it. I will also try to provide you with enough information in the beginning to help you to navigate through the site in order to do what you need to do.

Course Content
- Read the course outline before you go any further. It will always be available as a resource at the top of the page.

- Each section of this course represents a week and a specific theme. Please read the course activities in the order that they are presented in a particular week. Most of the course content is hidden until the week approaches, at which point I will reveal all relevant resources. Some assignments and readings have been left visible so you can plan your schedule, or work ahead.

- Part of my role as the instructor is to act as a facilitator and to provide organization, content and technical help in moving through the online experience. Feel free to ask questions in the Forums on the week's topic so that everyone can participate in the learning curve.

- You are expected to make regular weekly contributions via the Forums. See the Course Outline and Participation and Grading Breakdown resource for information on assignments and grading.

- All written assignments should be written in proper English. Try to do the same in the Forum discussions. While you will not be graded for spelling and grammar in the Forums, please avoid unnecessary abbreviations, cursing and aggressive behavior.

Moodle Activities and Resources

The Book Activity
This online course takes various forms. The Book activity can be found once in a while under a week's list of activities. You can also find it under Books in the block in the upper right hand column called Activities. (If you get lost, come back to this page by clicking on the course name VAST 305 S090 in the upper left 'bread crumb trail'.)

The Resource Activity
All assignments, handouts, etc. are available as resources. You can also access all Resources in the right hand column of the online course. Resources comprise extra technical and conceptual content that are linked to other places on the Web as well as to documents (pdfs) that you may find useful.

The Forum Activity
Class communication is conducted in the activity called Forums through written conversations. You will see we use various Forums for questions, discussions, announcements and critiques. This is a key component as it is equivalent to attendance and participation in a F2F class.

There are also separate Forums in the first week called News and Questions. Ask technical questions here that can be answered either by the instructor or perhaps another student. If you are having specific problems, email: online-help@ecuad.ca

The Assignment Activity
And finally, all the course assignments are also presented in the activity called Assignments. All assignments must be upload by a specific date and time, so please pay attention to due dates.