How do I prepare my students to use a VLE?

• as increasing numbers of students coming to university are computer literate the difficulties with what is called ‘technophobia’ should diminish. However, effective learning will usually not take place until the student is settled comfortably into the electronic environment.
• a practitioner can make initial access easy and welcoming. Designing an attractive ‘welcome page’ and writing a friendly and welcoming e-mail to all the students can be a valuable strategy. Learning outcomes, content and assessment should appear on other webpages.

Hello All

The course team hopes you will enjoy your studies in this module and that you will do well in the assessments. If you click on ‘Contents’ you will find useful information and the first study webs. These will always have more in them than the workshop notes and, importantly, will have feedback on questions and issues and links to other valuable webs. They are also useful for revision.

Above all, this virtual learning environment is a place where you can contact each other and any member of the course team. Learn how to use e-mail and this discussion forum facility. Ask questions of each other and of the course team after workshops or seminars. Start discussions on topics of interest. Let’s make this a lively web! It is a powerful resource – the most important since the invention of the printing press!

Please use these resources and check for messages daily.

Enjoy!

• be prepared to help late enrollers with a quick introduction to the VLE. Research tells us that these particular students are ‘at risk’ and are often in a permanent state of trying to catch up. Consider getting ‘VLE veteran’ students to carry out this task on your behalf.
• encourage very early socialisation by getting students, if comfortable with the technology, to send an e-mail to the tutor. This could be a pre-determined message or a request for information, for example about the previous experience of the student in relation to the course material.
• WebCT and Blackboard have a facility for students to compose their own individual home page. This is not technologically demanding, and the on-screen help takes the student through the process in easy stages. The great advantage of getting the student to do this exercise, apart from the confidence it can promote, is that it can have the effect of allowing the student to feel that they have ‘arrived’ on the course. Other students can visit the home page and learn something about their fellow students. Tutors can also learn about the interests and background of the students.
• students are often curious about their tutors. You should therefore consider having your own home page in the VLE.
• get students to e-mail each other (or use the discussion forum) with comments on each other’s home pages, particularly on common interests

Last Modified: 14 July 2010