Before we begin our semester of study together, it is important that you review all of the material on the course orientation pages (there are several) and on the course syllabus. These resources will not only prepare you to be successful in this course, but they will also help you prepare for the "Syllabus" quiz at the end of the orientation. You must get a score of at least 80% on that quiz to gain access to the assignment dropboxes for this course...and the answers are all contained within the syllabus or in this orientation!
Have you looked at the syllabus? This course orientation will complement and expand on the information provided on our syllabus. Be sure to review that document, too...carefully! A link to the syllabus is located in the main menu.
You should complete the Course Orientation as soon as you begin the first week of class. Please refer to the Calendar in Canvas for specific time frames and due dates.
The following is an overview of those activities that must be submitted for Course Orientation. Detailed directions and submission instructions are located within this orientation.
(You may want to print this page to serve as a checklist as you go along.)
If you have any questions, please post them to our General Course Questions discussion forum (not email), located under the Discussions section in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum daily to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.
On the following pages, you will find important information about the course structure, requirements, scheduling, and technical requirements and assistance—all of which you'll need to know in order to pass the course. Remember, you are also responsible for the information in our course syllabus.
This course will be conducted entirely online. There are no set class meeting times, but you will be required to complete weekly assignments. Registered students in this course will need to navigate between several environments. These include:
The instructional materials on this site include lessons, plus the Orientation. Each lesson contains an introduction, reading assignments, links, assessments, etc.
Canvas is the learning management system currently being used by Penn State University. In Canvas, registered students may consult course calendars; communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students; submit assignments; receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant; take online quizzes and surveys; and check assignment scores and course grades. A link to Canvas appears on every page.
Following is information about Canvas, Penn State's Learning Management System (LMS). In Canvas, registered students may consult course calendars; communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students; submit assignments; receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant; take online quizzes and surveys; and check assignment scores and course grades. A link to Canvas appears on every page.
If you are new to Canvas, it is strongly recommended that you complete the PSU: Canvas Student Orientation [2].
You may also want to review the Canvas Student Guide [3] to acclimate yourself further, and watch the following video:
Credit: Canvas Overview for Students [4] from Canvas LMS [5].
In this video, you will learn how to navigate your Dashboard, courses, and Global Navigation Menu in Canvas.
When you log in to Canvas, the first thing you see is the Dashboard, which provides a high-level overview of your current courses. The Dashboard can be displayed in three different viewing options.
Card View displays a course card for each of your favorite courses. Each card can include clickable icons for Assignments, Announcements, Discussions, and Files. List View displays an agenda view of graded items from your courses, as well as any non-graded items your instructors designate for a course To Do list. You can also add your own items to the agenda.
Recent Activity View displays a stream of recent notifications from all your courses, including announcements, conversations, assignments, discussions, and peer reviews.
You can also access the course grades page from the Course Card and Recent Activity Views by clicking the View Grades button. The Grades page displays grades for all of your courses. To view grade details for a specific course, click the name of the course.
To view a course, click the Courses link in Global Navigation and click the name of the course you want to view. The course opens to the home page set by your instructor.
You can use the Course Navigation links, breadcrumb navigation, or the sidebar to navigate to different areas of the course.
The sidebar includes a To Do list that displays links to announcements and other items that require action in your courses, such as assignments, quizzes, discussions, and pages.
If your course includes student groups, you can view a list of your groups in Course Groups. Click the group name to view the group homepage. View recent assignment feedback in Recent Feedback. Click the assignment name to view feedback in the Submission Details page.
Canvas displays a Global Navigation Menu that gives you direct access to your courses and other areas of Canvas.
Click the Account link to log out of Canvas, specify your notification preferences, upload and view personal files, modify your user settings, manage ePortfolios, obtain a QR code to log in to the Student app, view global announcements, and enable a high-contrast user interface.
Click the Dashboard link to return to the Canvas Dashboard. Click the Courses link to quickly access your favorite courses and view a list of all your courses. Click the Groups link to access groups in which you are enrolled or view a list of all your groups.
Click the Calendar link to view your personal calendar and course calendars. Click the Inbox link to view and send messages to your instructors and peers within Canvas. Click the History link to view a list of course content and content areas you have viewed within the last three weeks.
Click the Help link to access help resources for your institution.
Thanks for watching this Canvas overview video. To learn more about Canvas, ask questions, or engage with other Canvas users, please visit community.canvaslms.com.
The Canvas Help Center provides extensive, up-to-date documentation [6] on making sure your computer is configured properly for Canvas. Failure to follow these recommendations may result in significant issues while viewing materials, taking assessments, and using drop boxes. Use of unsupported browsers is at your own risk.
Your Canvas Profile and User Settings let you control your personal information in Canvas. Take a few minutes to personalize your Canvas profile and set your Notification Preferences, by following the instructions below.
Task | Instructions |
---|---|
Personalize your Canvas Profile |
|
If you use PSU OneID |
Students who are enrolled with OneID will not receive emails automatically from Canvas due to not having PSU email access. We advise that students set up a personal email address for notifications.
|
Set your notification preferences |
You have the option to select how, when, and for what information you would like to receive notifications. This can be very helpful when keeping track of items such as discussion posts, assignment due dates, and exams. Visit Canvas Notification Preference Support [8] and follow the instructions for setting up your notification preferences. The video below this table provides additional information. To ensure that your Canvas Inbox messages forward to your regular e-mail account immediately, check the "Notify me right away" option (the checkmark) for each item under "Conversations" in Notification Preferences. |
Set your timezone |
|
Download the Canvas App | For information on using the app by device, please see the following:
|
Before you begin working through the course content, you need to make sure the computer you are using is configured properly for the multimedia that you will encounter. Below are specifications and tests to help make sure everything is in working order.
For this course, we recommend the minimum technical requirements outlined on the World Campus Technical Requirements [12] page, including the requirements listed for same-time, synchronous communications.
Access to a reliable Internet connection is required for this course. A problem with your Internet access may not be used as an excuse for late, missing, or incomplete coursework. If you experience problems with your Internet connection while working on this course, it is your responsibility to find an alternative Internet access point, such as a public library or Wi-Fi ® hotspot.
This site is considered a secure website, which means that your connection is encrypted. We do however link to content that isn't necessarily encrypted. This is called mixed content. By default, mixed content is blocked in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. This may result in a blank page or a message saying that only secure content is displayed. Follow the directions below to view the mixed content.
We have YouTube video material in many of the lessons in this course. Chances are pretty good that you already use a Web browser that is configured to view YouTube videos, but to be safe, here is a "test" file that you should try out now to make sure you won't have problems later in the course. If this video (1:14) runs smoothly for you, then you're ready to go. If you can't get the video to play on your computer, then please refer to the steps at the bottom of this page to troubleshoot your problem.
Request Help. If you still have not had any success, then it is time for you to contact the HelpDesk. University Park or Commonwealth Campus students should contact the IT Service Desk [13], and World Campus students should contact the Outreach Helpdesk [14]. It is in your own best interest to be as specific as you possibly can. Vague descriptions of a problem only delay assistance. Try to include information such as:
In real estate, you hear the phrase, "Location, Location, Location!"
In music, as in sports, the phrase goes something like "Practice, Practice, Practice!"
And in the world of cooking, everyone knows that "the better the batter, the better the cake!"
In other words, what you put in greatly influences what you get out. And that is what this page is all about: Quality in - quality out.
For online courses, the advice most likely to lead you to success is "Engage, Engage, Engage!"
What does this mean? Quite simply, it means being active in the course on a regular basis. It means keeping in sync with what's going on in the course, staying on top of deadlines and assignments, asking for help when necessary, and taking every opportunity to interact with the content and the instructors. It means making EGEE 102 a regular part of your routine. Do this, and frankly, it will be difficult for you NOT to succeed in this course.
In online courses, the role of both the instructors AND the students tends to shift from the traditional classroom roles. The instructors' role is similar to that of good supervisors, and the students' role is closer to that of a good employee. The instructors define and set overall goals, outcomes, and time lines; make the information, resources, and experiences available to you to meet those goals; and, provide the support, guidance, communication channels, and feedback to help you succeed. The students' primary responsibilities are to stay on task, to manage their time and energy in order to get everything done on a weekly basis, to ask for guidance when in need of clarification, and to take every opportunity available to improve their chances of success.
So, the very best advice we can offer you is to be engaged in this course at least nine hours each week, and log on 5-6 days of the week to spread out your study and thinking time. In the final analysis, completing multiple online sessions of quality study time is a tried-and-true recipe for success in EGEE 102.
Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of a successful online class. Canvas supports several kinds of communication, as described below.
In addition, registered students have a Penn State email account (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.
The Canvas course management system supports several modes of communication, including discussion forums and course mail.
Whenever you post a message in a forum or send course mail, please title every message with a descriptive subject line. Subject lines that include the gist of a question or comment increase the chances that students and instructors can retrieve the messages we're looking for. Poor subject lines, such as "Question" or "Lesson 1," are not very useful as search keywords. When replying to a prior message, consider whether or not the subject line should be altered to indicate the content of your reply!
Occasionally, the University or the World Campus needs to communicate with students. To do so, they use the @psu.edu email address that each registered student has, not Canvas course email.
So, it is important that you regularly monitor your @psu.edu email account.
You should have read the material on the course Home Page, Syllabus, and all of the Orientation pages and you hopefully have a much better idea of what this course, and the online course environment, will be like. Now, it is time to test your skills!
You will need to take the "Quiz on Syllabus" and pass it with a score 13 out of 14 in order to unlock the Canvas lesson modules for this course. You can take the quiz as many times as you need until you obtain at least 13 out of 14 .
Good luck!
You have reached the end of the Course Orientation! Double-check the to-do list on the Course Orientation Overview page to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 1. (To access Lesson 1: Energy and Society, use the link in the "Lessons" menu.)
Links
[1] https://psu.instructure.com
[2] https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1780857
[3] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-4121
[4] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/Canvas-Overview-Students/ta-p/383771
[5] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/tkb-p/videos
[6] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1284
[7] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1285
[8] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10624-4212710344
[9] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1559
[10] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1666
[11] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/Notification-Settings-All-Users/ta-p/383690
[12] https://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/general-technical-requirements
[13] http://itservicedesk.psu.edu/#
[14] http://student.worldcampus.psu.edu/technical-support
[15] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee102/orientation/technicalrequirements
[16] https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/public/diagnostics/general.shtml
[17] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee102/orientation/aboutcanvas
[18] http://www.psu.edu/dept/itscss/internet/email.html
[19] https://accounts.psu.edu/manage/email