Staff Guide

Simon Ball, E-learning Co-ordinator

What is Balcarraslearning.com?

Balcarraslearning.com is the school’s Virtual Learning Environment (V.L.E.)

It has been created using software called Moodle

Resources such as lessons can also be placed here

to aid student progress in case of absence or to support parents at home

It allows secure access to information on students including their progress

and attendance

It enables all students, staff and parents the opportunity to communicate effectively in a

controlled and monitored environment

It provides one place where students can access personalised work including homework which can

also be accessed by parents

How to access from home

To access the VLE you will need internet connection and a browser

In today’s world there is a wide variety of ways to access the internet

balcarraslearning.com

Browsers (for example)

Access (for example)

Web address:

Logging in at home

Once you have navigated to the website www.balcarraslearning.com, you should see a screen similar to the one below

This is your normal network log in. Note: If you are accessing the VLE at school, you will not be asked to login. Instead it autologs you in when you log into the network. To access the VLE at school all you have to do is open Explorer since it is the homepage for the school.

Logging in for the first time

You will may be asked to agree to the Site Policy Agreement

Home page

You should see a page similar to the one below:

MIS Information

The MIS information is how data from SIMS is included into the VLE

The most useful will be:

The MIS Writeback feature is being developed and there will be more on this feature in the future.

You can find the students by filtering by first name or surname. Under actions you can see timetable and attendance and current developments are behaviour and achievement.

This is a really powerful feature which allows staff to view details about students.

To see their timetable, click on the timetable icon at the top.

This allows us as staff to find other staff during the day.

Use these links to quickly navigate to the course you want to access. Please let support know if there are courses missing or if there are some which you do not teach from

This is a list of courses which your should be enrolled on.

My courses

Adding Classes

To get students to participate in your course, you need to add them to your course. Only one person needs to do tis for each course, and it is recommended that the member of the e-learning group co-ordinates this. 1. Open your course and then click Import SIMS Groups into course.

Adding Classes

2. Open the folder for the year group and then the subject. Check the tick box next to the classes you want to import e.g. and then

3. This may take a little while….

4. You should see something similar to above.

Adding Classes

5. Navigate back to your course

6. Check your groups by clicking Users > Groups

7. To remove groups, select all the groups and click delete selected groups. Also uncheck these groups in the MIS integration.

Check each group is correct by selecting and then licking Show members for group.

Adding Classes

8. Click on the tab groupings to check that that have also been transferred. To remove each grouping, click on the X.

Setting Homework

1. Click on the course where you want to set homework, e.g. French Year 7.

2. Click New homework or event….

3. Select type of homework – group. (user will be just for you, curse will be for everyone enrolled on the course).

Setting Homework

1. Click on the course where you want to set homework, e.g. French Year 7.

2. Click New homework or event….

3. Select type of homework – group. (user will be just for you, curse will be for everyone enrolled on the course).

Staff Room

ALL STAFF should be able to see STAFFROOM in their courses. Although it will change it should look similar to below:

Clciking on the links will show those items under the calendar (scroll down)

Support

There are many other aspects to the VLE which you can explore at your leisure Obviously this is an ongoing project at Balcarras and we are continualy looking at ways to improve the Virtual Learning Environment If you have any sugestions or issues relating to the VLE, please contact me by e-mailing sb@balcarras.gloucs.sch.uk. I hope that you find the VLE a valuable tool. Simon Ball, E-Learning Co-ordinator