Tips and Tricks for using eLearn

Not sure what the eLearn system can do for your classes? These thoughts are only a start.

Help ensure students do the reading

• With eLearn, students can take multiple-choice or true-false quizzes online, and the eLearn system will automatically grade them for you, even putting the calculated grade directly in your online gradebook. This allows you to grade student work regularly without taking your personal time for grading or even taking class time for the quiz itself.
• You can require your students to post reflections on the readings in discussion forums online, and view the reflections by assignment or by student when you're evaluating them. Students can read each other's posts and reply to them, getting discussion started before class even begins.

Support student collaboration

• Allow students to work together in teams on group assignments with private discussion forums and editable wikis. Each team can work together and help other members with their projects even when their schedules are incompatible or they live far apart from each other.

Keep track of student work and progress

• When you enter a due date for an assignment into eLearn, the due date automatically appears on the course's main calendar as well as on the student's own elearn calendar, so students (and you!) can keep abreast of what's coming due.
• You can require your students to take a survey on the course content, with statistical results showing you what level they're at or how far their understanding has progressed.
• If your students submit papers online through eLearn, you always have a record of whose papers have not been submitted on time; you can make electronic corrections to their drafts that they'll get back instantly; and you always have a copy of their old papers so you can see where they're learning and improving.

Save yourself time and effort

• You don't have to wait for the library to put your course readings online in busy periods. You can place any electronic file on eLearn to give your students instant access (and using our Xerox copiers, turn print chapters and articles into electronic files). You can even give the students music or other audio recordings to listen to on their own time.
• If you ask your students to submit their assignments online, you don't even have to be on campus to collect them, and you can get comments back to them during a break period.
• eLearn's grade book can calculate your students' course grades, saving you the time of adding it all up.
• Hate grading? For simple quizzes (true-false or multiple-choice), eLearn can do your grading for you, and save you both class time and personal time. You can even assign fill-in-the-blank quiz questions - but note that the system will mark minor typos or spelling mistakes as incorrect.