Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

VLE or virtual learning environment is a toolkit that allows Educators to create online one-stop shops for the course content. Designed for online course delivery, it combines with the assignment module for in-school teaching. It is a very useful tool for Educators to share prepared online content with their students. 

What does the module contain?

The VLE module is part of the communicate/enterprise contract. For our legacy clients, then the pages may not be available on your MySchool portal. Please contact your CSM and we can add these to your system.

• Course resources - An administrator view of all courses and their associated content.
• Course Educator resources - Specific and streamlined just course Educators and their respective courses.
• Mentor course content dashlet - Allows mentors to follow their assigned students' course work.
• Guardian course content dashlet - The same as the Mentor and is view only.
• Student content dashlet - Allows students to consult the course content and interact with it via their MySchool portal.
• LTI configuration page - For Super Key users to add external LTI compliant software and integrate this into the course content (Zoom, Panopto, Blackboard).

Introduction to resources

As explained, courses resources are used to enhance online teaching and course content delivery. 

Educators create Topic folders, which are available to the students. Within these folders, they create content for the topic. These are lesson plans, assignments/projects, forums, and quizzes. If you wish to integrate with external LTI compliant software, you can include these in your institute's resource pack.

Topic folders

Organise your content for your students. This can be by subject topic or date/session/term range. These topic folders will be added to your assignment grade grid. 

Lesson planner/content

You can create your scheme of work for the academic year, and create lesson plans for your students. You can publish all the content at the start of the year or publish it in packs of topics or for a specific time frame. Introduce links and attachments so that the students will be able to download the information when they need it. in a hybrid solution where there is a mix or in school and online delivery, the lesson planners can act as recaps of lessons held and issues raised.

Assignments

Educators can create assignments from the VLE course resource module or via the normal assignment module. Students using the course resource pack can still submit works, recover corrections, interact via a forum, and receive individual grades and feedback with their student content dashlet. 

If you are using the notifications module then they will be notified automatically when content is published or graded. 

Forum

Forums can be used to discuss issues as a learner group with the students being able to interact with each other as a group. It can be within a topic or outside for a general discussion. you can even attach forums to specific assignments as well.

Quiz

A new addition to VLE resources is the functionality to create quick quizzes, based on a Google classroom format. Educators can create questions, and add the desired answer. The students will be automatically graded on their contributions. Educators can view the submissions, and the final grades are used within the grade grid. Only numerical grades can be used for this assignment type.

LTI compliance

If you use an LTI compliant partner software (Zoom, Panopto etc), then we can also embed their content within your course resources. 

Please note that third party software will require payable or Pro accounts in most cases. These costs are not covered by MySchool. Check out this article for more information.

FAQ for course resources (VLE)

Can we still use learning outcomes in the assignments?

For the most part, the VLE version of creating assignments is the same as the default version. The assignment grade grid view is still the best way to get an overview of performance. 

Can we copy resources across courses?

Yes, there is a copy function between the educator's courses, and even from year to year. if you use the content and topic section of subject specifications, you can have centrally created content for your Educators to choose from. Include it as part of the subject specifications rollover to make it available year on year.

Does MySchool offer video or voice solutions? 

No, you will need to either integrate with an LTI solution such as Zoom or add an external link to google meetings, skype for video and voice conferencing within a lesson planner. 

Can the forums be moderated?

For the moment, we do not have a moderation functionality. Encourage your students to use the forum responsibly. if the forum is attached to an assignment then a student can be removed from the assignment if needed.

How do we know that students are completing the lessons and tasks?

When a student opens the content using view, they can also acknowledge that they have read the content. have a look at this article which outlines the student course resource dashlet. 

On the course educator pages, Educators can see a completion percentage of active tasks being marked as read/done by the students.

Don't forget to use the notify functionality which sends a mail informing the students and/or their guardians of new content. 

Can Guardians have access to course resources?

Guardians will have read-only access via the guardian dashlet.