We'll constantly update the Student Helpdesk to assist our students with using our online classroom. The She Writes Studio site access and navigation guide is meant as a reference. If you have any problems or questions, please contact us.

Course information

Most courses will allow writers to see their own course administration block. This block will allow the student to see information about themselves in the course.

Student view of course administration block in the "Features" course

Your Profile

Your profile contains information about you that other users can see by clicking on your name. Profile information includes the description of yourself (if you have entered one) your name, location, email address (if you chose to make it accessible) and the list of courses you are enrolled in and a picture. You can edit your profile by clicking your name and using the 'edit' tab, or click on "Edit Profile" in the course administration block.

You and your teacher can also see your activity in things like forums.

Updating your Profile

Student view of their Profile page's tabs(students may not see all of these tabs)

Please update your profile when information changes. It is important that your current email address is important. For example, you may choose to automatically subscribe to a forum and receive email copies of all new messages that are posted there.

There are several settings that are accessible from your profile that will help make your use of our classroom more productive.

• Email format: You can choose to have emails sent from our virtual classroom in Plain text format or Pretty HTML format. HTML format will include images and the our virtual classroom colour scheme in emails, but will be slightly larger in size.
• Forum auto-subscribe: If you select yes for this it will mean that when you post a message to a forum, you will be subscribed to that forum and receive email copies of all messages for that forum. You may unsubscribe from forums if you wish as well.
• Email digest type: You may choose to receive all emails from our virtual classroom in one daily message. There is also the option to receive either the complete message or just the Subjects from forums you subscribe to.
• Forum tracking: This is a useful option to enable. If it is enabled on our virtual classroom site it will highlight unread forum messages so you can easily see what is new.

Gradebook

in your administration block links to your gradebook.

Blogs & forums

The student can view their forum posts and their blog via their Profile link.

Using text entry

Creating a message or adding text to our virtual classroom is usually through a text entry area.

Messaging

Some course and sites allow students to send messages to other users. Sometimes this is done in a chat activity or by clicking on the Send Messge link on a user's profile page.

Useful blocks for students

Activities block

The activities block shows the student all the activities available in a course.

There are many activities going on in this course

Participants block

Some courses will show a block that lists all the students in the course and may show the teacher(s).

Access and Navigation

Why can't I log in?

There could be many reasons but the most probably is you have simply forgotton your password, are trying the wrong one or are entering it incorrectly. Some other things to think about include:

• Does you username or password contain a mixture of upper and lower case letter? It should be entered exactly
• Are cookies enabled on your browser

How do I gain access to a course?

Locate or search for the desired course (you can click 'All courses...' in the 'My courses' block) and click on the course name. If your teacher has given you an enrollment key, enter it when prompted, and click Enroll me in this course. Once you are enrolled in a course, it will appear under "My courses" any time that your are logged into our virtual classroom site.

How do I jump between my courses?

• 'My Courses' block if it has been added to the page you are on
• Go back to the homepage (see below) and then use the main course block (if it has been added!)

How do I get back to the homepage?

Use the navigation bar at the top left of the page or the button at the very bottom of the course

How do I find course X?

If you are not already enrolled in a course you can search for it by name and description.

Course content

Where have all of the weeks / topics gone?

You have probably clicked on the icon of a single class. To reveal all of the other weeks / topics you need to click on the"all" icon which you will see in the right margin of the week / topic. You can also use the dropdown box underneath the displayed week / topic to jump to a hidden section

Emails and forums

Why am I not getting any e-mails and others are?

Chances are your email address in your profile is either wrong or disabled. It could also be that you are not subscribed to the forums that are generating emails. AOL users may also not receive e-mails if the administrator has banned the use of AOL email addresses.

How can I stop all of these e-mails?

E-mails are an essential part of the way our virtual classroom works. They are used to keep you up to date with what is going on. If you wish to reduce the amount of emails you get you could:

• Edit your profile and change your e-mail settings to digest
• Unsubscribe from non-essential forums (although they are there for a reason!)
• Disable your e-mail address in your profile although this is not recommended and may go against in house rules.

Assignments and grades

Why is there no upload box?

This is either because:

• The assignment has now closed
• The assignment is not yet open
• You already uploaded something and the settings prevent resubmissions

How can I see my recent assignment feedback?

There are many ways you can access their feedback. The most common method is by simply going to the same place where you uploaded the work. Another common method is to follow the link in the recent activity block (if the teacher has included it on the course). Another method would be to access the grade book and then follow the link for the required assignment. Depending upon how the assignment was set up, you may receive an email when it has been marked with a direct link to the feedback.