Welcome to Sure Skills Help for Teachers/Tutors

Welcome to Sure Skills Help for Teachers/Tutors www.heinemannsureskills.co.uk www.heinemannsureskills.com The following Help information maps the Teacher/Tutor view of the service, and talks you through the common tasks that a Teacher/Tutor may undertake. The Tutor is the user who sets assignments for the Learners within a class, and monitors their progress through the course. If Tutors need to set up and administer users and classes, as well as creating assignments for Learners, they will need two logins: an Administrator login and a Teacher login. Your Sure Skills Administrator will be able to provide you with the logins you need. For further details on Administrator tasks please see Detailed Help for Administrators. Contents 1. Roles and Responsibilities... 2 2. Log-in Screen... 3 3. Post Log-in... 4 4. Viewing Content... 6 5. The main features within the Content... 9 6. The Navigation Bar... 10 7. Finding your way around each screen... 12 8. Setting Assignments (My Work)... 13 9. Modifying and deleting assignments... 39 10. Marking Assignments... 41 11. Other Information about your Students... 48 12. Attendance Records... 50 13. Progress Reports... 52 13.1. Viewing Reports By my Work... 52 13.2. Viewing Reports By users... 54 14. Tutor Resources... 57 15. System Requirements...58 16. Using Internet Explorer... 58 17. Further Support... 59

1. Roles and Responsibilities There are three main types of users of the Sure Skills service. They are: Administrators Administrators have access to the system to manage all other types of users. An Administrator login will automatically be created for your college/organisation by Harcourt when you subscribe to Sure Skills, and the Administrator should use this login to create and administer all other users and to set up classes. Administrators are also able to view the content of the Sure Skills courses that have been purchased from Harcourt. Please note: Harcourt creates only one Administrator login per establishment and all communication regarding the subscription is via this Administrator. However, the Administrator can set up additional Administrators if necessary. Only Administrators can set up users and classes, so if you are a Tutor who needs to carry out these functions, please ask your Administrator to set you up with an Administrator login as well as a Tutor login. Teachers/Tutors Teacher/Tutors have access to the system to create assignments for the Learners within their classes. They are also able to track the Learner s progress through the assignment and provide feedback to the Learner once they have submitted their assignment. Tutors can additionally upload their own assets e.g. worksheets or links to websites, onto the system and make them available to Learners, although any interaction by the Learner with these additional documents will not be tracked or recorded by the system. Please note: In order for Learners to access the Sure Skills content, the Teacher/Tutor must first assign the course content to them. More details on how to do this are given below. Learners On logging in, Learners can see the assignments that they have been given by their Tutor under My Work. They then work through the assignment using the Sure Skills course content, and upon completion of the assignment are able to submit it to the Tutor for review. The Learner is also able to view information regarding the progress they have made through the assignment and shows the scores for any activities or mini-tests that they have taken under My Progress. Please note: It is possible for Tutors to track the Learner s progress through an assignment without the Learner having to formally submit it to the Tutor. Throughout the assignment, as the Learner completes the activities and mini-tests, they will be given instant feedback upon their performance. Submitting the assignment upon completion for the Tutor to provide additional feedback is optional. 2

2. Log-in Screen The first screen that you will see is the Log-in Screen: Help provides indepth information regarding how to utilise the features within the Sure Skills service. There is separate Help for Administrators, Tutors and Learners. Quick Tour provides a high level overview of the features and benefits of the Sure Skills products. Credits provides information regarding contributors to Sure Skills. Figure 2: Log-in screen To log-in you will need to enter the College/Organisation ID, your User Name and Password. Your Administrator will need to give these to you. Remember that your log-in details are case sensitive. 3

3. Post Log-in After logging in as a Tutor, you will see a page that contains 2 tabs: Classes and Tutor Resources. The Classes tab contains links to all the areas from which you can set assignments for Learners and view reports on their progress. Tutor Resources contains additional resources such as Lesson Notes and Resource Sheets. Figure 3: Classes and Tutor Resources 4

The Classes Tab From the Classes tab, you can click on the blue underlined hyperlinks to access the following areas: My Work which takes you to a page showing all the work (assignments) which you have set for all your classes. My Students which displays information about all the students in all your classes. Help which links you to this Help file. Classes which lists all the classes for which you are the Tutor. o Clicking on the class name will link you through to a page showing only the work (assignments) which you have set for that class, as well as other information for that class. Reports you can access reports sorted by your work (assignments) or by users (Learners). Figure 3a: Classes Tab 5

4. Viewing Content As a new user, the first thing that you may wish to do is view the Sure Skills content that your classes have access to. To do this click on the class name on the Classes tab, and select the Content tab on the right hand side of the screen. Figure 4: Viewing content The page will refresh to show you which courses that class has access to: Figure 4a: Viewing content courses 6

Click on the course hyperlink (in blue) to take you through to the course content. Figure 4b: Viewing content course content The next few screens that you will see show the course menu structure: This shows you the level and the subject. Figure 4c: Viewing content sample level menu 7

This shows you the units. Figure 4d: Viewing content sample main menu This takes you to the Introduction. It tells you which topics are covered in the Unit. Each unit is divided into Topics. Each topic has both learning and activities. The Skills Reviews gives Learners the chance to think about their learning and how they are doing. At the end of each unit is a Mini-test. Learners can use this to check that they have understood the learning. Figure 4e: Viewing content sample unit menu 8

5. The main features within the Content The main features within the content pages are: The Breadcrumb Trail at the top of the screen provides information on which part of Sure Skills you are in. It also provides a quick way of navigating back to the Tutor pages. The Curriculum Reference dropdown shows how each page maps to the adult core curriculum. Use the Navigation Controls to move from screen to screen, control the audio (on/off), print pages and use the glossary. There is also a calculator for the Numeracy content. The Zoom Panel lets you magnify the content pages. Use the Audio Control Panel to play, stop and re-play the audio on screen. Use the Animation/Video Control Panel to play, stop and replay animations and videos. Figure 5: Sample content page As part of the learner paced environment, the Flashing Hand points users to the next action they are expected to undertake within the content page. Until they click on the flashing hand the page will remain static. 9

6. The Navigation Bar This is the navigation bar: Menu Audio Calculator Back Next Print Glossary Replay Screen numbers Menu button This takes you back to the menu one level up from where you are. So, for example, if you are in the middle working through a unit, it will take you back to the Unit menu. If you are at the Unit menu, it will take you back to the Level menu. Print button Click on this button to print any page of the Sure Skills content. You may need to change your paper settings to landscape to make sure that everything on the screen prints out. Audio button Click on this button to turn the audio on or off. If you turn the audio off when you are in a section, for example, in the activities, it will stay off until you move into another section, for example, the Skills Review. When the audio is off, the button has a red line through it, and the audio control panel at the bottom left of the screen disappears. Glossary Clicking on words that are underlined on the screen will take you to the glossary. You can also on the glossary button at any time to refresh your memory about the meanings of words. Click on this part of the glossary to drag it around the screen. Click on the X to close the glossary. Click on the coloured letters to go to that page. Use the scroll bar to look for different words. 10

Calculator Click on this button to open the online calculator. Click on the X to close the calculator. Click on this part of the calculator to drag it around the screen. Click on the buttons to enter numbers and functions. Replay Click on this button if you have missed something or not quite understood. The whole screen will refresh and you can work through it again. Back button The Back button takes you back one screen. Screen numbers The screen numbers show you which screen you are on and how many screens there are in the section. Next button The Next button takes you forward one screen. Please note that within the Tutor view, at the end of each section of content (Introduction/Learning Points/Activities/Skills Review and Mini-Tests), it will appear as if there is a final page of content that you cannot access. The screen number will show e.g. 6/7 and the flashing hand will appear: indicating that you should go to the next page, but it will not be possible to do so. The final page in all content sequences is viewable only within the Learner view. It is a page asking them where in the content that they have been assigned would they like to go next. 11

7. Finding your way around each screen Working through each screen To help you find your way round the screens, look out for the Flashing hands and the Arrows which tell you when to move on. The Flashing hand is blue in the Literacy screens and yellow in the Numeracy screens. It appears over the thing that you need to click. The hand will stay on screen until you click on it. The Arrows also change when you need to move on. The flashing hand tells you that there is more to read. The arrow has also changed from grey and white to orange and yellow. When you put your cursor near the arrow, a continue tag comes up. Figure 7: Navigation tools Audio control panel The main audio button on the navigation button allows you to turn the audio on or off completely for each page. The audio control panel lets you play, pause, stop and replay the audio that goes with each chunk of text on screen, so if you ve missed just a bit of something, use this panel. Video/animation control panel This lets you play, pause, stop and replay the animations and videos. The flashing hand will appear over the Play arrow to tell you to start the video or animation. The progress bar tells you that a video or animation is loading. 12

8. Setting Assignments (My Work) Before creating an assignment, ensure that your Administrator has created accounts for all the Learner Users who you want to give the assignment to. In order to create a new assignment you MUST do the following: Step 1 Select the 'Classes' tab. Step 2 Click on the Class for whom you want to set the assignment. This will bring up the My Work page for that class. Figure 8: Setting assignments My Work page You can see that no work has yet been set for this particular class. Figure 8a: Setting assignments My Work page 13

Step 3 Click on the Create new assignment button. Figure 8b: Setting assignments Create new assignment This will open a new screen where you will input the details for the assignment. Figure 8c: Setting assignments adding Description details 14

Step 4 Enter the name of the assignment in the Name box. There are no rules regarding the naming convention for your assignment. Figure 8d: Setting assignments adding Description details 15

Step 5 Enter the start date for the assignment in the Start date box. The date must be entered in the following format: dd-mm-yyyy, so to enter a start date of 9 th May 2006, you would input 09-05-2006. Figure 8e: Setting assignments adding Description details 16

Step 6 Enter the end date for the assignment in the End date box. The end date will always be pre-populated with the current date, but you can amend it to any date that you wish. The end date must be entered in the following format: dd-mm-yyyy, so to enter a start date of 9 th June 2006, you would input 09-06-2006. Figure 8f: Setting assignments adding Description details 17

Step 7 Enter the description for the assignment in the Description box. There are no rules regarding the description for your assignment. You may wish to include an instruction to the Learner here. Figure 8g: Setting assignments adding Description details 18

Having followed Steps 4 7 above, your assignment screen should look something like this: Figure 8h: Setting assignments adding Description details 19

Step 8 Click the Create assignment button on the right hand side of the page. Figure 8i: Setting assignments Description details complete The screen will be refreshed, and the Create assignment button will change to say Modify assignment. Figure 8j: Setting assignments Description details complete 20

Step 9 Next you need to input the content of the assignment. There are three types of content file which can be uploaded: o o o Files which you have created yourself and wish to share with your Learners such as worksheets or resources. The files can be of any type e.g. Word documents, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations etc. Links to other websites. Courses these are the Harcourt Sure Skills Literacy and Numeracy courses. Note that although Files and Links can be uploaded as part of the assignment, the Learner s progress is only tracked through the Sure Skills Courses. Figure 8k: Setting assignments adding Content details 21

Step 9a Add Files by clicking on the Browse button, Figure 8l: Setting assignments adding Content details and browsing your College s or Organisation s network or your computer until you find the file that you want to upload. Click Open in the browser window and the location of the file will be populated in the File box: Figure 8m: Setting assignments adding Content details Click on the Add button to upload the file. Figure 8n: Setting assignments adding Content details 22

The page will refresh, and the File that you have uploaded will be listed underneath the Content section. Figure 8o: Setting assignments adding Content details If you accidentally upload the wrong File simply click on the Remove button to the right of the listed item. Step 9b Add Links by typing the url of the website that you want to draw to your Learner s attention to into the Link box, Figure 8p: Setting assignments adding Content details 23

and click on Add : Figure 8q: Setting assignments adding Content details The page will refresh, and the Link that you have uploaded will be listed underneath the Content section. Figure 8r: Setting assignments adding Content details If you accidentally upload the wrong Link simply click on the Remove button to the right of the listed item. 24

Step 9c Add Courses to your assignment by selecting one from the drop-down list, Figure 8s: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content and clicking the Add button. Figure 8t: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content 25

The page will refresh, and the Course that you have selected will be listed underneath the Content section. Figure 8u: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content To add multiple courses to the assignment repeat Step 9c. There is no limit to the number of courses you can select for an assignment. 26

Figure 8v: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content It is possible to create an assignment which only utilises part of a course s content. However, whether you want to use all or only part of the course, you must follow Step 9c to initially select the course. If you accidentally upload the wrong Course simply click on the Remove button to the right of the listed item. 27

Step 10 After you have added a Course to your assignment, you need to decide whether you want to utilise a whole course or only part of it in your assignment. Click on the Modify button to the right of the listed item. Figure 8w: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content 28

A new screen will appear within which you can select (by checking the boxes) which part of the course you want to assign to the Learner. You can quickly select/deselect the whole course by checking the very top box. Figure 8x: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content 29

Or you can select different sections of the course to create an Individualised Learning Plan. Once you have made your selection click on the Modify button on the right hand side of the screen. Figure 8y: Setting assignments adding Sure Skills course content You will be returned to the main assignment screen. 30

Step 11 The next step is to allocate the assignment to your Learners. By default all Learners in the class will automatically be pre-selected (pre-checked) in the Students section. If you want to allocate the assignment to the whole class simply leave the boxes checked and click Set Users. If you want to allocate the assignment to only a few people, uncheck the box next to those people who you do NOT want to do the assignment, and click Set Users. Figure 8z: Setting assignments allocating Learners Once you have selected your users, you have finished creating your assignment. 31

Click on the My Work tab at the top of the page, or on the Class Name on the left hand menu and you will be taken to the My Work page for this class. You will see that your assignment has been added to the list of work for that class. Figure 1: Setting assignments checking your assignment 32

Step 12 To check the details of the assignment, click on the blue underlined assignment hyperlink. You will be taken to a page which shows all the details of the assignment. This is the same view that the Learner has when they log in and click through to an assignment. You will see that the Harcourt Courses are listed separately under the Content section. Any additional Files and Links that you uploaded are held under Resources. Figure 8aa: Setting assignments checking your assignment 33

If you click on the Enter button under Content, you can go through into the course content. Figure 8aa: Setting assignments checking your assignment 34

As, in the example assignment created above, we had selected both Literacy and Numeracy courses to be part of the assignment, you will need to decide which course to enter first. Figure 8ab: Setting assignments checking your assignment 35

Here I have selected the Literacy Entry 3 course and can now view the menu for that course. Please note that because I selected the whole course as part of the assignment, all of the Literacy Entry 3 menu is active. Figure 8ac: Setting assignments - sample 36

Here I have selected the Numeracy Entry 3 course and can now view the menu for that course. Please note that because I selected only certain parts of this course as part of the assignment, only the selected parts of the course are showing as active on the Numeracy Entry 3 menu. Although the other Units within the course are shown on the menu, they are greyed out. Figure 8ad: Setting assignments- sample 37

Similarly, within Unit 1, only those parts of the course that I selected as part of the assignment are active. Figure 8ae: Setting assignments -sample 38

9. Modifying and deleting assignments 9.1 Modifying an assignment Step 1 If you want notice any errors or ommmisions within the assignment, click on the Modify button at the top right, Figure 9: Modifying an assignment and you will be taken back to the screens shown in Steps 3 11 where you can amend the details of the assignment, which content it contains, and who it is allocated to. 39

Step 2 click the Modify Assignment button to save any changes to the assignment. Figure 9a: Modifying an assignment 9.2 Deleting an assignment Step 1 Click on the Remove button to delete an assignment. Be careful not to press this button by accident as once it has been pressed, the assignment will be deleted permanently. Figure 9b: Deleting an assignment 40

10. Marking Assignments Under Classes, if you click on the name of the class, you will automatically see the My Work page for that class. You can see which assignments have been given to the Learners, when the assignments started, when they are due to end and other details including whether any assignments have been submitted to you for evaluation. Figure 10: Marking assignments 41

To evaluate, or mark, an assignment after it has been submitted to you by a Learner, click on the blue underlined assignment hyperlink. You will be taken to a page which outlines all the assignment details, including a note regarding which Learners have submitted their assignments to you for marking. Figure 10a: Marking assignments 42

Click on the name of the Learner who has submitted the assignment to you: Figure 10b: Marking assignments 43

You will be taken to a page which outlines the details of the Learner s assignment. It contains two fields into which you can insert: o a mark for the assignment, should you wish to, and o a comment upon the Learner s progress or performance. This mark and these comments are in addition to the scoring for the mini test and the automated feedback for the activities that the Learner receives whilst they work their way through the Sure Skills content. Figure 10c: Marking assignments 44

Insert your comments as appropriate: Figure 10d: Marking assignments 45

And click on Set Mark. Figure 10e: Marking assignments 46

The page will refresh and you will be returned to the assignment page. The status column will now indicated that you have marked the assignment and will show what you gave for the assignment. If you did not give a mark, the mark field will be left blank. Figure 10f: Marking assignments 47

11. Other Information about your Students If you click on the Class name on the Classes menu, you can access the Students sub-tab. This page lists all the Learners within that class, and shows you if they have submitted any assignments to you for evaluation (marking). Figure 11: Learner/student information If you click on the Learner s name, you can see more details about the assignments that particular Learner has been given, as well as any marks that you have given them for previous assignments. Figure 11a: Learner/student information 48

If you then click on a hyperlink to a particular assignment, you ll see a screen which shows you the details of that assignment. If the assignment has been submitted to you for marking, there will also be two boxes into which you can enter a mark for the assignment (should you wish to) and comments. See further details on marking assignments in Section 9 above. Figure 11b: Learner/student information 49

12. Attendance Records If you click on the Class name on the Classes menu, you can access the Attendance records sub-tab. This page lists all the Learners within that class. Figure 12: Attendance records Click on the Learner s name to see their attendance record. If they have been given multiple assignments, you will need to select the assignment first via the drop-down list. Figure 12a: Attendance records 50

Once you have selected the assignment, you can see how long the Learner has spent in each part of the Sure Skills content. Figure 12b: Attendance records 51

13. Progress Reports As a Tutor, you can view your Learner s progress through their assignments on an on-going basis. You can view Reports in two ways: o o By my work which sorts reports by assignment, and allows you to compare the progress of multiple Learners who are undertaking the same report. By users allows you to view a single Learner s progress. 12.1. Viewing Reports By my Work On the Classes Tab click on By My Work within the Reports section. This will display a list of all the assignments that you have created. Figure 13.1 Viewing Reports Select the assignment that you wish to check progress on by clicking the View hyperlink. Figure 13.1a Viewing Reports 52

This will take you through to the Progress Record for that assignment. Click here to print the record. Check the boxes and press Set to see different bits of the record. The key shows you what the symbols mean. You can only print the Skills Review. The activities and the minitests shows your score. Figure 13.1b Viewing Reports Side by side columns allows you to compare multiple Learners progress. Click on the magnifying glass to view the content screens in the state in which they were last saved by the Learner. 53

The print out of the Progress Record looks like this: Figure 13.1c Viewing Reports 13.2. Viewing Reports By users On the Classes Tab click on By users within the Reports section. This will display a list of all the Learners within your classes. Figure 13.2 Viewing Reports 54

Select the Learner whose progress you want to view by clicking on the View hyperlink. Figure 13.2b Viewing Reports This will take you to a screen showing a list of that Learner s assignments. Select the assignment which you wish to view the learner s progress on by clicking on the View hyperlink. Figure 13.2c Viewing Reports 55

This will take you to a screen showing that Learner s progress through that particular assignment. Figure 13.2c Viewing Reports 56

14. Tutor Resources Each Sure Skills course has additional Tutor Resources associated with it. These are automatically assigned to the class tutor at the same time as the rest of the course content is made available, however they do not become available to view until the Tutor has created an assignment utilising the Sure Skills course. If you have not created any assignments utilising either the Literacy or Numeracy courses, then the Tutor Resources area will display a message saying that There are no Tutor Resources. Scroll down the page to access the Numeracy Tutor Resources if your college / organisation has purchased Sure Skills Numeracy. Figure 14: Tutor Resources 57

15. System Requirements Processor: 900mhz Intel Pentium III OS: Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP Memory: 256Mb Screen Resolution: 1024x768 Colour Depth: 16 bit (high colour) or above Audio: sound Card (soundblaster equivalent) Graphics: Flash 7 and later, DirectX 9 compatible integrated video chip with 128Mb Ram, 64Mb DirectX 9 compatible standalone graphics card preferred Browsers: Windows 98SE and higher - IE6, Firefox 1.0.6 Broadband Connection: 2 Mbps internet connection 16. Using Internet Explorer If you are using Internet Explorer, please ensure that Show friendly HTTP error messages does not have a tick beside it. You can check this by going to the internet browser navigation bar and selecting Tools > Internet Options : Within Internet Options select the Advanced tab and check the setting highlighted below: 58

17. Further Support If you need further support, or experience any problems using Sure Skills, please ask your Sure Skills Administrator for assistance. 59