LearningSpace 2.0

What is LearningSpace 2.0 Program designed for project-based learning and real-time collaboration in virtual workspaces. Includes safe social media tools, including blogs, wikis, forums, media galleries, file storage, and more. Provides safe and policy-managed social learning environment for all students and teachers in our district. Policies are set at the district level, so you will never need to edit those. Enhances communication and collaboration through: Management of collaboration tools Storage of Schoolwork and documents for anytime, anywhere use Ability to create, organize and tailor safe, web 2.0 enabled groups for individual classrooms, team projects, school clubs, and local and global collaborations ePaLs connects teachers, students, parents, and educators from around the world, enabling them to communicate and collaborate on academic and cultural projects and establish international friendships. Learning Space is optimized for project-based learning, differentiated instruction, and authentic real-time learning that is safe within classroom communities, across districts and around the world. ePaLs and LearningSpace promote safe web 2.0 communication tools including email, blogs, wikis, forums, and media galleries. The ePaLs Global Community facilitates connections with more than 700,000 classrooms in 200 countries and territories. ePaLs Global Community vs. LearningSpace: The ePaLs Global Community stretches out to anywhere, whereas LearningSpace is just Wilkes County Schools…for now.

Accessing LearningSpace 2.0 https://wilkes.epals.com Select the LearningSpace tab in the top toolbar Sign in with username and password: Username: adamskwcs Password: wcspassword Once the correct login information has been entered, click on the “Sign In” link. Once logged in you will be viewing the LearningSpace Homepage. Here you are able to view all your connections, content, groups, and activities. In addition, you can write to a blog, start a discussion, or leave a message via the QuickPost feature. Your LearningSpace Homepage serves as your dashboard and from here you can access everything relevant that you need to manage your use of LearningSpace. On the left of “My Home” you will see several tabs, these include: Home, Classes, Projects, Groups, Collections, Connections, My Files, Global Community, and Resources. As you scroll down “My Home” you will see the following widgets: Quick Post, My Stuff, My Groups, Activity, and My Profile, Online Now, and My Connections.

Setting up “My Profile” & “My Settings” You can setup/view your LearningSpace profile by clicking on your username in the top right-hand corner of your homepage. To edit you will need to click “Edit Profile” located in the top right-hand corner of the profile page. You can be discrete in your profile if you chose, but be detailed enough that people looking for projects and groups will know whether or not to be interested in what you’re doing. With My Settings you can edit more of your profile information and set up an email signature.(Basic Options) Set up your private/public emails and select your email options for both; select your site options, time zone, and date format. (Advanced Options) Change your password. (Sign-In Information) In your profile, you can include a brief bio of yourself, your location, birthday, gender, language, interests, occupation, hobbies, etc. You can also post a “Quick Post” using the widget here that will go out to all other members of your LearningSpace community. Your groups, friends, favorites, and blog posts can be accessed from here as well. Make sure you save often anytime you are making changes. My Settings allows you to make a few additional changes. With basic options you can customize your welcome name. So in the “name” box, put whatever name you’d like to display next to Welcome. This is also another way that students/teachers can search for and find you. In your settings, you can also select what you want other people to be able to see with “Account/Profile Activities”. You should select what you want to be shared using the checkboxes. This is only specific to your activity. Students have access to this feature, but I wouldn’t publicize that. Administrators (your ITF) can go in and reset student passwords if needed. To begin with, students will have a generic password, and we encourage them to change it to their NCwise#.

Creating Groups in LearningSpace 2.0 To create a group, go into your main classroom group (located in “Classes”). Select, “Create a Group”. Give the group a “Name”. Be descriptive. By default teachers’ classroom groups will be private listed, but that can be changed. Types of Group Listings: Public Open: Everyone can read your group, it is publicly listed, and any registered user can join it without approval. Public Closed: Everyone can read your group, it is publicly listed, and users must be approved before becoming group members. Private: Only members can read your group, it is publicly listed (title and description), and users must be approved before becoming group members. *Public: Public to our WCS district as long as you are logged onto the Wilkes domain. Select the ePals Group Type: Standard, Class, Collection, or Project Standard: Students, teachers, and parents can collaborate (clubs, PTO, etc.) Classroom: The place for your real-world class in LearningSpace. Includes blogs, wikis, forums, and your media galleries(files). Assign activities, and receive assignments. Collection: Teachers and students can create resources for various topics here. Project: Workspace to develop topic, assignment, and customized project-based learning opportunities for your students. If you delete groups, all the content associated with that group will also be deleted. The “Invite User” and “Manage Members” tabs will bring up the same page: here you can edit or remove users and change membership types, invite mass members (but verify that their membership role is the same). Otherwise, invite them individually! Two good ways to get group members: You can Invite via email (membership role needs to be the same) or students can search for the name of the group and request membership for public closed or private listed. Remember that public open is open to anybody. Their invitation will appear as a numerical notification next to their username, your join requests will appear this same way. You will click the number to accept members, whereas they will click the number to accept invitations.

Submitting Files & Assignments on LearningSpace 2.0 My Files Homework Drop Box Within the “My Files” link, teachers can create multiple galleries and upload files for sharing or saving for a later date. To upload any file to your gallery, you will need to click on the “New Post” button located on the right-hand side of the page. Choose files from URL or “My Documents” with “Specify File/URL” button. Teacher would begin by accessing one of your classroom groups and click on “Create Course”. Enter a name for the course and a description of it. Now you can edit the course, add an assignment, or delete the course and start over. To add an assignment to your course, click “Create Assignment” link, give it a name, add instructions, and choose when the assignment will be handed out and when it will be due. For the Homework Drop Box, you can also decide whether or not you wish to prevent late submissions or allow resubmissions of assignments should they be within the allotted amount of time. So, for example, if you want to allow resubmissions, you can provide feedback on an assignment and allow the students to turn it back in after making adjustments to their work. Any file that is submitted to the teacher is private, as are the comments made by the teacher with regards to the assignment.