Course Pages

Modified on Wed, Feb 28 at 1:06 PM

Course Pages

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Course Page Features
A Tour through the Course Pages Main Screen
Using Course Pages
Course Page Posts
Combining Course Pages

What are Course Pages?

Course Pages are simple web pages created in the Genesis Gradebook and displayed in Parent and Student Access (Parent Module).

You do not need to "create" course pages for your courses – you only need to use them.

They already exist. Find them on the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages* screen:

The Gradebook Course Pages Screen

Course Page Features

Course Pages allow you to put text posts with your weekly assignments, web hot links and uploaded documents on the course web pages so that your students and their parents can view them at home.

There is one course page for each Gradebook – for each class you have.

You can link them together so that a post to one appears on all of the linked pages, but each page really is separate.

A Tour through the Course Pages Main Screen

Change visible page name. Make pages visible to Parents and Students. Link pages together.

3 capabilities: add posts, links and preview the pages.

The main course pages screen, Gradebook>Home>Course Pages, displays a Course Page for each of your Gradebooks.

These do not have to be created: they will already exist.

All you need to do is:

Put posts on them
Make them visible in Parent and Student Access.

Each Course Page has a "Page Title", pre-loaded with a welcome message, buttons for you to add posts or web links, a preview button and a checkbox to allow you to publish the Course Page so parents and students can see it:

You can also link multiple pages together using the "link" icon, and put your Course Pages in any order you want using the "Seq" sequence number field.

Using Course Pages

Previewing the Course Pages

The most basic thing you can do is to view a Course Page.

You can always preview your Course Pages – even when they are empty.

To see how the posts and links will appear in Parent Access, click its button.

This brings up the Course Page preview, no matter how simple:

When a Course Page is 'open', you can easily move from the Preview screen, to the "Posts" screen and the Links screen simply by clicking the tabs:

What do Parents and Students See?

How does the Course Page appear in Parent Access? Pretty much the same as it appears to you, only a bit prettier:

The Course Page screen in Parent and Student Access, showing the "Latest Posts" for all of the student's classes.

Parents and students can navigate easily between the Course Pages for all their courses or subjects.

The posts, including weekly assignments, appear in separate panels and any links will appear to the left side of the screen.

The most recent posts from all their courses or subjects can appear together on a "Latest Posts" screen.

Publishing Pages

The Course Pages do not appear in Parent and Student Access unless you have "published" them.

"Publish" here just means "make visible to parents and students".

On the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages* screen, each Course Page has a "Publish" checkbox:

To make a Course Page visible to parents and students, check its "Publish" checkbox and click SAVE.

Changing the Page Title

The title of the Course Page appears at the top of the Course Page:

You can change the title in two places:

Directly on the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages* screen, where you can update all pages at once:
On the top of the "open" Course Page screens - Gradebook>Home>Course Pages>Edit Course Page:

Simply enter a new title into the "Page Title" text field and click SAVE.

Course Page Posts

A Course Page can contain a set of individual "posts". Each post appears in a separate panel in Parent Access. Each is dated.

You can add and remove these posts whenever you wish.
Sample posts as they appear to parents and students

Posts can include uploaded documents, embedded hot links and fancy text (tables, lists, colored text, images, etc.).

Adding & Editing Posts

Adding Posts

Adding new posts is straightforward:

Go to the "Posts" screen. If the page is already open, simply click on the tab.
If you are on the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages* screen, click the button:
Once you are on the Posts screen, click the button:

The Posts Screen with No Posts Yet Message

This brings up the 'create post' popup:
1. You must pick a date. All posts are dated and appear on the specified date.
2. Enter a subject. This is the "title" of your post.
3. Optionally, check the box to "Add Weekly Assignments Macro". This will automatically add your weekly Assignments to the post. See below about the Weekly Assignments Macro.
4. To go ahead and create the post, click the button. E.g.
Now the full "Edit Post" screen is displayed:

The "Edit Post" screen highlighting the major controls

Edit your post and click when you are done!

You can always make changes later. See below for info on EDITING COURSE PAGE POSTS.

Editing Posts

Posts can be updated at any time. "Editing a post" means updating the text in the post.

All posts for a Course Page are listed on the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages>Posts* screen:

To edit a post, click its button. This will bring up the "Edit Post" screen.

This is the same screen that was displayed when initially creating a post:

Click "Save Post" when you are done.
1. Text area showing the weekly assignments macro
2. Buttons to add Macros and upload documents
3. Full word processing controls, including bullet lists, tables, colors and MORE!
  
  The "Edit Post" screen highlighting the major controls
Making changes: when you are editing a post you can enter and update the text area, including adding and removing the following:
- Tables
- Lists
- Emoticons
- Images
- Links embedded in text
- Fancy text (bold, colored, italicized, underlined, highlighted, etc.)
When you are finished updating your post, click . You can edit it again whenever you wish.

Adding Macros to Posts

You can always add macros to your posts by clicking the button.

This brings up the "Add Macro" popup:

Currently, these are the macros:

${WEEKLY_ASSIGNMENTS} – This is described above. It pulls in all Gradebook Assignments for the week.
${COURSE_DESC} – This adds the Course's "Course Description" field to your post. The Course Description is not controlled by you: it is the official name for the course as found in your school's 'course catalog' in Genesis.

${WEEKLY_ASSIGNMENTS2} - Add a listing of assignments that are due during the next 2 weeks from this post (1/2).
${TOMORROWS_ASSIGNMENTS} - Add a listing of assignments that are due the day after this post (1/2).
${OPEN_GB_ASSIGNMENTS} - Add a listing of gradebook assignments that have been 'Assigned' before this post and 'Due' after this post (1/2).

You can add one macro to your post at a time. Click in the radio button for the macro you wish to add:

Then click the button. The selected macro is added to the bottom of your post:

Weekly Assignments Macro

The weekly assignments macro, ${WEEKLY_ASSIGNMENTS}, finds all of your Gradebook Assignments for all days (M to F) of the week the post's date falls within.

The post's date can be any date, from Sunday to Saturday of a week: the macro finds all Gradebook Assignments dated in that week and adds them to the post, when the post is displayed in Parent and Student Access.

The macro can be automatically added to your post either when you first create it, by checking the checkbox, or later by using the button.

What does the Weekly Assignments Macro Really Pull In?

In Parent/Student Access, the macro is expanded to show a list of your Assignments for the week:

Name for each Assignment, the Assignment Due Date, Name and Description fields are displayed:

Remember that the Assignment Description fields can contain over 2500 characters!

Uploading Documents into Posts

To upload a document – a file – into a post, click the button.

This brings up the "Upload Document" popup:

Click the button to bring up a standard File Dialog:
Select your file :
Then click
The document should be uploaded and then listed on the left directly under the button:
You can repeat the process to upload as many documents as you wish to.

What kinds of Files/Documents can be uploaded?

All the usual file types can be uploaded: MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, text files, .csv files, .wml files.

Copying Posts to Other Course Pages

On the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages>Posts* screen, each post has a button.

To copy a post to other Course Pages, click its button:

Clicking the button brings up the Copy dialog.

Check off all of the Course Pages you wish to copy the post to

A confirmation dialog tells you how many Course Pages the post has been copied to.

Deleting Posts

Every post on the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages>Posts* screen has a DELETE POST button.

To delete a post, just click the "Delete Post" button.

When you click it, a confirmation box will appear.

After you click OK, the post is removed. No other confirmation is given. Parents and Students will no longer see it.

Links on Course Pages

Web links can be added separately to the Course Pages.

The Web links will appear on the left side of the Course Page in Parent/Student Access.

The Links Screen

Each "Link" has the name that is displayed in Parent Access, called the "Label", and the URL.

Adding a New Link

Adding new links is easy:

Go to the "Links" screen. If the page is already open, simply click on the "LINKS" tab.

If you are on the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages* screen, click the "X LINKS" button.

This brings you to the "Links" screen of the Course Page.

Click the "Create New Link" button. This brings up the "Create Link" dialog .

Enter the name you want to be displayed in the Link Label field.
Enter the URL in the Link URL field.

Click CREATE. This creates the link and adds it to the list.

Testing Links

Each link includes a "test" button. There is an "Open Link" column that displays how the link name will appear in Parent and Student Access.

To test whether the link does what you want it to do, simply click the "Open Link" button for your link.

Ordering & Reordering Links

Links are displayed in numerical order by sequence number.

To change the order in which the links appear, simply change their sequence numbers and click "Save Links."

Every time you click "save links" the links are resorted by their sequence numbers.

Editing Links

On the *Gradebook>Course Pages>Links* screen, the "Label" fields and the "URL" fields are all just text fields.

You can update each Label and each URL simply by changing the text in each field.

When you are done updating your links, click the "save links" button.

Copying Links to Other Course Pages

A link can be easily copied to other Course Pages. There is a "Push to" button corresponding to each link.

To copy a link to another Course Page, simply click the corresponding "Push to" button.

This brings up the "Copy" dialog. Check off all of the Course Pages you wish to copy the link to and click "Copy."

A confirmation dialog will tell you how many Course Pages the links have been copied to.

Deleting Links

To delete a link, click its trashcan delete icon.

Combining Course Pages

Multiple Course Pages can be combined – or linked - to together into a simple common page.

This allows you to have one page that addresses multiple course sections or multiple subjects.

For example, suppose you are teacher multiple course sections of the same course and you would prefer to have one course page for all those sections, rather than a separate course page for each.

To combine multiple pages into one, do the following:

On the *Gradebook>Home>Course Pages* screen, each Course Page has a link icon.

Click the link icon for one of the pages you wish to combine with others.

This brings up the 'link Course Pages' dialog.

Check the check boxes of the Course Pages you want to combine with the selected one.
Click SAVE. This will combine the pages together and update the Course Page list:

The combined Course Pages are grouped together, with one Title, one set of Posts and one set of Links.

Unlinking Course Pages

Combined Course Pages can be separated again whenever you wish.

To unlink the Course Pages and separate them, click on the link icon for the combined page. This brings back up the "Combine" dialog.

Uncheck the checkboxes for the pages you wish to separate out (possibly all of them).

Click SAVE to make the change.

Once unseparated, all of the separate pages contain all of the posts that the combined page held.

You can now once again add posts to a single (unlinked) Course Page.