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 our course syllabus. These resources will prepare you to be successful in this course and will make the journey over the next 10 weeks significantly easier.
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!
You should complete the Course Orientation before 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 Technical Discussion forum, located on the Modules tab in Canvas under Orientation & Resources. I will check that discussion forum frequently. 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 located on 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.
This site includes the majority of the instructional materials for this class. There are a few things you should know about this website. This site uses a "tab" interface to organize content. The tabs are used as follows:How the Website is Organized
How to Print a Lesson or Page
One advantage to presenting the course in Drupal is that Drupal allows us to publish the text openly for the benefit of anyone who has access to the Internet, regardless of their ability to pay tuition or buy an expensive printed textbook (this is applicable to certain courses in our program).
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 [5].
You may also want to review the Canvas Student Guide [6] to acclimate yourself further, and watch the following video:
Credit: Canvas Overview for Students [7] from Canvas LMS [8].
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 [9] 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.
Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of a successful online class. Canvas supports several types of communication, as described below. In addition, registered students have Penn State e-mail accounts (<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. Please note that this is a comprehensive list of communication tools available in Canvas. This course may or may not utilize all of the options below. These are messages from your instructor that contain important information. Current announcements can be accessed through the Announcements link in Canvas. Announcements may highlight assignment due dates (also published in the course Calendar), lesson recaps, a preview of an upcoming lesson and other essential course information. The Inbox is the equivalent of e-mail in Canvas. It's great to use for a quick e-mail to another student, instructor, or a whole team. Keep in mind that the text editor is very minimal, and does not have much formatting capability. Please use the Canvas Inbox only for private messages to instructors or fellow students. Discussions allow students to interact with the instructor and other classmates. Threaded discussions allow multiple posts and replies. New posts appear in the Course Activity Stream page, so you will know when something has been posted. Conferences allow instructors or student Groups to host synchronous meetings online. Canvas integrates with BigBlueButton, a conferencing tool similar to Adobe Connect. Recordings made in BigBlueButton are available for a period of only two weeks after creation. 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!Announcements [10]
Inbox [11]
Discussions [13]
Conferences [14]
Note:
There are many ways to get the help you need. You can post on the Canvas forums, or email your instructor, or see the "Help!" link in the Resources menu to learn more about the people and resources available to you.
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 |
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Personalize your Canvas Profile |
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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.
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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 [16] 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 |
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Download the Canvas App | For information on using the app by device, please see the following:
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GEOG 585 is hopefully one of the most valuable courses you will take in your online geospatial education career. It will provide skills that make you more productive and possibly save you (or your organization) significant expenses on software. It will also introduce you to technologies that are in high demand in today's GIS workplaces, thereby boosting the interest factor of your resume. Finally, and most importantly, it will provide more choices and resources in your tool belt when addressing geospatial problems.
None of this comes for free. It is anticipated that Geog 585 will be one of the busiest and most intellectually demanding courses that you attempt in this program. From past experience teaching very technical online courses on programming and cloud/server GIS, let me suggest the following keys to success:
For this course, we recommend the minimum technical requirements outlined on our "Program Technical Requirements" page [20]. If you need technical assistance at any point during the course, please contact the Outreach Helpdesk [21] (for World Campus students) or the ITS Help Desk [22] (for students at all other campus locations).
Access to a reliable Internet connection is required for this course. 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.
Links
[1] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog585/syllabus
[2] http://www.w3schools.com/js/DEFAULT.asp
[3] http://www.w3schools.com/html/DEFAULT.asp
[4] https://psu.instructure.com
[5] https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1780857
[6] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-4121
[7] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/Canvas-Overview-Students/ta-p/383771
[8] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/tkb-p/videos
[9] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1284
[10] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/tkb-p/student#Announcements
[11] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1293
[12] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/tkb-p/student#Inbox
[13] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/tkb-p/student#Discussions
[14] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/tkb-p/student#Conferences
[15] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1285
[16] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10624-4212710344
[17] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1559
[18] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1666
[19] https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/Notification-Settings-All-Users/ta-p/383690
[20] https://handbook.geospatial.psu.edu/node/527
[21] http://student.worldcampus.psu.edu/technical-support
[22] http://helpdesk.psu.edu/