E-learning Fundamentals; Getting Started with E-learning

E-learning is a learning process using information technology, including the network environment. There are two main objectives. The first objective is to develop distance learning. Statistically, it is known that a significant proportion of students fail to complete the course when studying on their own without a teacher. E-learning techniques try to partially replace the role of the teacher by:

• advanced study materials, where the student chooses the level of depth (difficulty) of the discussed topic and where the explanation is supplemented by multimedia - pictures, recordings, video recordings,
• test applications, where the student can test how well he/she understands the material and can apply it,
• communication applications that put the self-student in contact with classmates and the tutor (discussion forum, real-time discussion on a computer network),
• administrative tools that help the teacher to effectively assess students, generate statistics on which the course can be further improved, etc.

Well-designed, didactically sound, fully e-learning courses can make higher education accessible to people who cannot attend full-time classes. In the IS NEWTON environment, both free and commercial e-learning courses can be designed for the general public.

In IS NEWTON, it is possible to create an e-learning course within full-time or combined studies (in a given course and a specific semester), but it is also possible to create an e-learning course without any relation to the study, semester or course (similar to a MOOC or Massive Open Online Course). Such a course (independent of semester and course) can be made available by its author/teacher to any person (even to a person without the učo).

A course intended for the public can be made available free of charge to interested students .

A person without the učo can create an account in the IS NEWTON (thus obtaining the učo) and can enrol in published e-learning courses. The author creates the e-learning course content using the tools in the IS NEWTON, specifically the Teacher's Notebook. He/She can use all e-learning applications such as Study Materials, ROPOTs, Interactive Syllabus, Homework Vault, etc.

If you are interested in creating such a course, please contact the newtonisfimunicz.

Tools for creating e-learning course content are available to teachers in the Teacher's Notebook.

Study materials
The Information system Teacher [course selection] (Study materials) Work with study materials Learning materials

The Information system Help E-learning Posting study materials on the Information system

They allow you to post different types of materials. The student can clearly see the new materials, the teacher can see the readership statistics. Groups of materials can be uploaded and downloaded to the home computer in bulk (ZIP). Existing materials displayed on the regular web can be transferred to the application. IS NEWTON automatically converts the materials into a text version to make them searchable.

Homework Vaults
The Information system Teacher [course selection] Homework Vaults

The Information system Help Teacher Homework Vaults

The student uploads the homework into the homework vault, the system allows to correct the homework or to award points for it in the Notebook.



It can be set up so that the student has access to classmates' assignments (e.g., papers).

ROPOTs
Electronic tests containing assignments/questions to which students respond (test questions with one or more correct answers, tick-box selections, text entry, etc.). They can be used for practice, computer-based live testing or scanning tests. They incorporate security features to prevent, for example, unwanted leakage of assignments or to prevent copying. The ROPOTs can be used to prepare exercises on the text to be read, work on the text, drill information to be memorised, tests to verify knowledge, etc.

Read the introduction to the application:

The Information system Help E-learning ROPOT

Interactive syllabus
E-learning content and course activities can be organized by the teacher in the syllabus for students. General information about the course, its organisation and teaching can be concentrated here. The syllabus can be used as a signpost to topics, teaching units (weeks, modules, etc.) or it can be made into a comprehensive teaching material with the character of an electronic interactive teaching website by inserting text comments.

The Information system Teacher [course selection] Interactive syllabi

The Information system Help E-learning Interactive syllabi

Course discussion forums
The teacher participates in the course discussion according to his/her interest, the activity is not compulsory. See the Help for more details. .

Topic lists
The Topic lists application simplifies the assignment and organization of seminar papers and projects in the classroom. It allows the teacher to define topics for seminar papers, reports, projects and to provide students with the possibility and conditions for independent reservation of topics. It provides the teacher with tools for bulk work with the topics and the registered students. The application can also be used if the teacher needs to divide the students of the seminar into groups and organize, for example, work teams.

The Information system Teacher [course selection] Topic lists

The Information system Help Teacher Topic lists

The usual course preparation process involves the following steps:

Make it clear for whom you want to create the course (for students in the course, for the public, paid, free), what activities you want to run in the course and what materials you want to prepare. Basic options are:

• static teaching materials (html, word, pdf, ...),
• collecting the short assignments – e.g. to issue an assignment to which the student has to respond with a paragraph of text entered directly into IS NEWTON,
• collecting the files – essays, homework assignments, worked out exercises, which the student uploads to the IS NEWTON as a file,
• free discussion, encouraging students to interact,
• discussions according to certain rules – e.g. open a topic, have students comment on it by a certain deadline and comment on each other's comments, awarding points for comments provided,
• practice – ungraded tests, usually having a large number of examples,
• surveys – polls, questionnaires,
• test yourself – questions for students to check their level of knowledge,
• tests – actual secure testing for grades,
• enlivened texts – enriching the static teaching with exercises, questions, puzzles,
• links to internet resources, e.g. tests and exercises on other servers.

In the Study Materials agenda (Learning Materials folder) you can create folders for individual types of published materials, e.g.:

• interpretation of grammar,
• reading,
• recordings to listen to,
• dictionaries,
• overview of exercises from the Internet.

The breakdown is arbitrary, you can even have multiple levels so that the materials are clearly structured. Place the static materials you want to publish in the folders. Either paste them as files or type them in with an editor (text or HTML editor). You can also insert a link to a web resource (e.g. a dictionary).

If you want to collect homework (files), we recommend using Homework Vaults folder and to create subfolders for each assignment. Use "Open folder as a Homework Vault" to make them available to students. See the Study Materials Help section for more information. .

The testbank folder is special – you can use it to protect your ROPOTs and test questions. See the Help section on managing ROPOTs.

You can use the Discussion Forum agenda to discuss with students. If you want to use the discussion for more complex didactic purposes, describe the discussion rules in the first post of the thread or in the discussion forum header, for example. You can also moderate the thread (delete posts).

In their interface, students can see an overview of posted materials (and the number of new unread ones), an overview of homework vaults, available ROPOTs and the number of new posts in the discussion forum.

A preferred format has not yet been determined. If you have a good experience with one, please recommend it to the faculty support or the IS NEWTON developers.

Yes, the posted materials can be transferred without any problems. If you wish to upload large sets of text questions currently in a different format, please consult with newtonisfimunicz.