The navigation bar appears on the left side of the page. It allows quick access to the entire student-side of the web-site.
The links on the sidebar are as follows:
The only really important accessibility feature of the homepage is that it contains the hidden link to the teacher's side of the website
The link to the teacher's side of the website is located in the upper left-hand corner of the picture on the website's homepage. Clicking on this link will bring you to a log-in screen, and ultimately to the teacher's side of the web page.
The blog page is a rudimentary blog (no commenting capabilities as yet) that is controlled through the teacher side of the website. More information can be found in this document when it discusses the teacher's side more fully.
The disclosure document link does not automatically appear in a subject submenu, a disclosure document, written in html must first be uploaded to the site. Currently there is no way to do this except by contacting the webmaster, however, in the next few weeks an options page will exist that will allow you to upload an html document as your disclosure document.
The Homework page gives a brief description of the way homework and scoring works in the online system (soon it will easily customizable in the options page). The description is followed by a list of the homework assignments that are currently available to the student. This list is controlled by the teacher on the teacher's side of the website
Clicking on a homework assignment will take a student to one of two pages. If they have not signed in to the website during their current internet session, they will be taken to a log-in page where they will be asked to enter their student number. If their student number is recognized by the system, i.e. if they have been entered as a member of a class by the teacher, they will be sent to the homework assignment. If they have already signed into the site, they will skip the login page and go directly to the assignment page. The site also has a guest log on. To use the guest log on, type "guest" instead of a student id number.
On the left-hand side of each homework assigment, a list of problems for the assignment appears, followed by a "Submit Homework" Button
When it first appears, the main bulk of the page is occupied by a welcome with the student name following, a logout button, the assignment name, specific instructions for the assignment (if any) and the current raw score for the assignment
Clicking any problem on the left will show the name of the problem, the number of points the problem is worth, the problem itself, and a "Check Answer" button.
There are several types of problems:
The multiple choice questions consist of a question followed by any number of answer options. The student selects an answer by clicking on one of the radio buttons and then clicking check answer.
Calculation questions consist of a question followed by an answer box. Each calculation question has at least one variable. Each time a student returns to the page, the variables are redefined. The student may enter their answer in long form, or in scientific notation, e.g. 3.6e10.
Short answer questions consist of a question followed by an answer box. The student must enter their answer exactly as it was entered by the teacher (except for capitalization if the ignore capitalization box is checked in the assignment).
A Fill in the Blank consists of a question with any number of blanks inside it. The student must fill in each blank with the right answer. After clicking the "Check Answer" button, the boxes with correct answers turn green, and those with wrong answers turn red. The student receives no points until all blanks are filled in correctly.
Multiple calculation questions are much like calculation questions, except that they ask multiple questions using the same set of variables. Rather than a "Check Answer" button, the multiple calculation question contains several "Check Part" buttons, each part is worth part of the points listed at the top of the problem.
After answering a question, by filling in a radio button, or typing in the provided box/boxes, the student must click the "Check Answer" button, and the system will check the answer. If the answer is right, the system will print "Good Job!" beneath the "Check Answer" button and will also print a green check mark next to the problem number on the left. If the answer is incorrect, the system will print "Try Again." beneath the "Check Answer button and will also print a red X next to the problem number on the left.
Each missed attempt reduces the percentage of the points that a student can earn. At the moment, the percentage is set as follows:
If a student answers a question incorrectly twice, a hint is revealed below the "Check Answer" button.
Clicking the Logout button logs out the student and returns them to the log-in page.
Clicking the "Submit Homework" button submits the homework, adds an extra point if the assignment is done on the date assigned (this feature will be optional once the options page exists), and takes the student to a new page where they can once again navigate around the site(the assignment pages have no navigation back to the main page). The score recorded page lists the student's id number and the highest score the student has received on the assignment up to that point.
The calendar page displays a calendar of the current month with the ability to jump forward or back several months. Once created, homework assignments are automatically added to the calendar. If the assignment has been made available, the entry in the calendar hyperlinks directly to the homework assignment. From the teacher's page there is also the option to add other calendar items with or without hyperlinks.
The downloads page lists available downloads for each subject. Clicking on a download will immediately pop-up a box and ask if you want to download or open the download. If the download is a pdf, the download may open directly in the browser when you click on it.
The grades page shows the student's grades recorded by the website for assignments that are currently available to them.
Clicking on the hidden teacher's link on the main page brings you to the log-in page for the teacher's side of the website. From this page it is possible to return to the student homepage by clicking the link in the navigation bar. Once you log in, you arrive at the teacher's homepage which simply lists the places to go from there:
The attendance page has four options:
Because students have access to the page when the attendance program is running, clicking on "Run Attendance Program" logs the teacher out so that students can't use the back button to access the teacher side of the web site.
The run attendance page originally shows two dropdown menus. The first says "Select a Day" and lets you choose whether it is an "A" Day or a "B" Day. The kinds of days in the second dropdown menu are, currently, "Regular," "Monday," "Friday," and "Custom." These are set to the current respective bell schedules at AFHS. Eventually these times will be available to be changed in the options menu.
If you choose "Custom," four input boxes will appear at the bottom of the page. You should record the day's bell schedule in these boxed using a 24-hour clock.Once you have entered these times, or after you have chosen one of the other schedules, click the "Run Attendance" button, and the program is ready to accept student numbers.
Students enter their number in the text box in the upper left-hand corner. If they are on time, the screen turns green and displays their names. If the student is tardy(up to 15 minutes late), the screen turns yellow and say "tardy." If they arrive later than that, the screen turns black and says "Very Late." If the student enters a number that is not in the system, the screen turns red and says "Not a Valid Number." If the student is more than 15 minutes early, the screen turns blue and says "Too Early."
There is no navigation bar on the "Run Attendance" Page.
The "View Attendance" page allows you to view attendance records. The dropdown menu that appears when you first open the page allows you to select a subject. Once a subject has been selected, another dropdown box appears, allowing you to choose a class.
The attendance appears in a table. The numbers at the top of each column indicate the number of students that have signed into class, making it easy to do a quick headcount. The next row contains the dates that attendance was taken. The actual attendance records follow. A blank cell indicates that a student was "here," "T" that they were tardy, "V" that they were very late, "A" that they were absent, and "N" that they were not yet part of the class on that date.
Above the attendance table is a button that says "Archive Attendance." This button allows you to clear the page of old attendance records (otherwise it will eventually exceed the width of the page). Archived attendance can be found in the attendance archive.
Attendance can be viewed by name or id number. To change the setting, select the desired radio button before choosing a class. Also, to view in reverse alphabetical/numerical order, select the box marker "Reverse Alphabetical order" before choosing a class.
This link is pretty much unnecessary, but will tell you what time the website believes it to be.
The attendance archives list old attendance records. The name of each file consists of two parts. First, the class period the archive comes from, and second, the date range that the archive encompasses. Clicking on the archive name allows you to view it. By right-clicking, you can download the file to your computer for your own records. Clicking the "Discard" button to the right of or beneath the archived document will delete the document.
The classes page allows access to pages that let you manage your classes, creating new classes, adding students to existing classes, etc. The pages accessible from this page are:
The add classes page appears with a large text area and brief instructions. You can copy and paste student data from an excel spreadsheet or word document. The student names should appear in the form:
LASTNAME,FIRSTNAME:IDNUMBER;
e.g.
Washington,George:0101010;
When you have pasted your student list into the box, or if you simply want to add all your students one by one and have left the box blank, click the "Import" button below the text area.
The students will now appear with their first names, last names, and student numbers each in a different textbox and labeled as such. You can edit any of the boxes from this page. To remove one of the students from the list, click the "-" button to the right of that student's information. Clicking the "Add Student" button that appears at the end of the list will give you a full set of blank boxes at the end of the list to enter student information.
If you want to re-import your student data en masse, paste it into the large text area at the bottom of the screen and hit the "Import" button below it and you can begin the process again. Once you have finished importing and editing your class, hit the "Generate List" Button. A box will pop up asking you for the name of the class. If you name it the same thing as another class with the same name and belonging to the same subject, it will overwrite that class completely. Once you enter it, a new box will pop up asking for the name of the subject. If you enter the name of a subject that doesn't exist (including a different spelling of one that does exist), it will create a new subject for your new class. Next a box will pop up for you to enter the day "A" or "B" on which the class meets. Finally, a box will pop-up asking for the class period (1, 2, 3, or 4).
A class is born! You will be taken to a new page from which you can navigate to classes and add another class or go to any other page you choose.
View Classes gives you a bird's eye view of the subjects and classes that have been added to your website. It also enable you to easily remove whole subjects and classes from the site. Be aware that if you delete classes, their information isn't recoverable unless you have the information recorded somewhere else. However, if you delete a subject, the homework assignments you have created still exist on the site but they are not linked to the site and you will have to create a new class in that subject to access them again.
When you reach this page, first you must choose a subject, then a class to edit. The student list for that class will appear in text boxes in the following order: last name, first name, student number. You can edit the last name and first name from this page, but you are unable to change the student number because this is how the students are identified by the system. The only way to change a student number is to remove the student and then to re-add them with the correct number.
Clicking the "-" button beside a name will remove the student from the list. Clicking the "Add Student Button" at the bottom of the page will add a blank row and allow you to enter information for a new student. None of the changes are final until you click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page. In order to cancel the changes, simply navigate away from the page.
When you arrive at this page, select a subject and then a class. You should choose the class that the student you want to transfer is in currently. A list of the students--last name, first name, student number--will appear. Nothing can be edited on this page. In order to edit names you must be on the add and remove students page. Clicking the "-" button to the right of a student's information will select that student and highlight their information in yellow. To transfer the student to another class, find the dropdown menu beneath the student list and choose the class you want them transferred to. Then click Transfer.
You can only transfer students to a class within the same subject. Transferring a student allows them to keep the homework scores and attendance data that are already in their file rather than regenerating a student completely as on the Add Student page.
This page links to all pages that have a relation to communication with students. The links on this page include:
The Announcements created on this page appear on the blog page on the student side. The Post Announcements page consists of an input box for a title, and a text box for the bulk of the announcement/blog entry. These boxes are followed by a list of the current entries on the list. You may use html when writing a blog entry; however, don't put paragraph tags in the box. It will automatically add paragraph tags. Clicking the "Post Announcement" button will publish the announcement. Clicking the "Remove this Announcement" button by a specific announcement will delete that announcement.
Each event/calendar item must be related to a specific subject, have a date, written in the form mm/dd/yyyy, and a description of the event. If you want to link the event to a webpage, you can enter the url in the link text box. When you select a subject from the dropdown menu, the calendar items that have already been posted will appear beneath the "Add This Event" button." Clicking the "Remove Event" button deletes the related event from the calendar. Finish the process by clicking "Add This Event." The event will then appear on the calendar of the related subject.
This page allows you to add downloads to a subject's downloads page. On the page you will see a dropdown menu where you can select a subject and a browse button to select a file to upload. When you select a subject, the downloads currently available in that subject will appear after the submit button. Clicking on the "Remove This Download" button to the left of the download will delete the download from the site. Clicking on the download name itself will pop up a download box, or, in the case of a pdf, display the pdf in the browser. Finish the process of adding a download by clicking "Submit." The download will appear on the Downloads page on the student side of the website. Submitting a download will return you to the Manage Downloads page, and you can add another download or navigate away.
The Grades Page is very simple. First, select a subject from the dropdown menu. Next, set the options that appear below the dropdown menus. You can choose whether to view the grades out of ten points (this will one day be a number you can control) or in their raw form by selecting the correct radio button. You can also choose whether to view them by name or ID number also by selecting the right radio button. Finally, you can view the grades in reverse alphabetical/numerical order by selecting "Reverse Alphabetical order."
After setting the options, choose a class. The grades will appear for that class on the homework assignments that are currently set as available. Across the top of the table are listed the assignment names, and down the side of the table are the names or id numbers of the students in that class.
There are several highlighting colors you may see on your grades page. They indicate the following:
One of the newest and most awesome features of the website is the ability to copy grades into Skyward. Visit the Grade Importer page to set up that ability
The final feature of the grades page is the "Grades Entered" button at the bottom on the page. Clicking this button returns cyan cells to gray and dark blue cells to magenta, so that it is easy to tell what grades have already been entered in your gradebook.
This page allows you to manage all homework assignments. The links include:
Clicking on the "View Assignments" link first leads to a page which subject's assignments you wish to view. When you choose a subject, you will be taken to a page filled with a list of assignments. Each assignment has five possible options:
Clicking to edit an assignment will open the assignment in a new tab. The assignment page is split into three portions:
At the top of the page is Header Information starting with the assignment title as a large heading. Next is a textbox for the assignment name. Changing this name will essentially copy the assignment after you generate the homework; the original assignment will still exist.
The checkbox beneath the Assignment Name allows you to make an assignment available from the edit assignment page.
The due date and assigned date can be changed in the next two textboxes. They must be written in the form mm/dd/yyyy.
The Opening Statement textarea can contain specific instructions for an assignment, but is optional. It needn't be filled in if unneeded. If used it will appear on the initial page of an assignment on the student side.
Located on the right side of the screen, the special character palette contains special character buttons as well as a small Question Number checkbox, Add and Remove Question buttons, Generate Homework and Save Draft buttons.
The special character buttons, when clicked insert the character featured on the button at the cursor location if the cursor is located in a textbox that can take special characters. These textboxes include question boxes, hint boxes, answer boxes, and unit boxes.
The Add Question Button adds a question to the assignment, and the Remove Question button removes a question from the assignment. The default question to be removed is the last question in the assignment. However, if you put a number in the Question Number textbox above these two buttons, the question will be added to or removed from that position in the assignment. There is currently no way to copy a question.
The Generate Homework button saves the changes made in the homework assignment, and leads to a page that contains a link to preview the assignment and another to return to the assignment's edit page. The Save Draft button saves a draft. It can be useful if you haven't filled in enough information to have a functioning assignment but still want to come back to it later. The draft shows up on the View Drafts page.
All questions have several things in common. When you first add a question, it consists of a dropdown menu to define the type of question, a question textarea, a hint textarea, pointvalue, and a file upload button.
The question and point value boxes must be filled in, but the hint and image are optional. It is possible to define subscripted and superscripted text in many of the boxes. In order to do so place the part of the question you wish to be subscripted or superscripted between the square brackets in "sub[]" and "sup[]" respectively.
The image can be a jpg, png, gif, or tif, but must be under 20kb. Also, it is possible to upload a short wav soundclip. To upload a picture or soundclip, you must first hit browse, choose a file, click ok, then click upload. The picture or soundclip will appear next to the question. The remove button allows you to remove a picture that is wrong or unnecessary.
The point value will automatically be filled in with a default (changeable on the options tab--eventually)
The types of questions in the dropdown menu are as follows:
Calculation Questions:
To begin a calculation question, enter a question into the question box. The question must have at least one variable in it. A variable is defined by putting a letter (preferably a lowercase letter) in curly braces, e.g. {x}. Next click the "Define Variables" button. For each variable, there will appear several boxes: min=, max= and decimal places=. Also there will be several more general text boxes: margin of error, formula, and units.
In the min= box enter the minimum number you want the variable to be. In the max= box enter the maximum number you want the variable to be. The decimal places= box is set to a default of 0 (a default soon controllable on the options page).
The margin of error is also set by default; it represents how close the student's answer must be in percent to the computer's calculated answer (another default soon regulated by the options page). The formula the computer must use to evaluate the answer goes in the formula textbox. Numbers and defined variables can be used in the formula as well as several operations including:
+,=,*,/,(),^,abs(),log(),ln(),cos(),sin(),tan(),atan(),acos(),asin(),sqrt()
Be sure when entering a formula that you use multiplication signs to multiply numbers and variables. The computer doesn't understand that, for example, 2b means the same thing as 2*b.
The units are optional, and can be defined however you wish.
If you click the Redefine Variable button, the program will reprocess the question and give you blank min, max, and decimal place boxes again for each variable. The margin of error, formula, and units will remain filled as they were before, however.
Fill in the Blank
A fill in the blank question only adds one option to the question field, Ignore Capitalization checkbox. If checked, the capitalization of all answers doesn't matter. If unchecked, students must capitalize correctly to get the question right.
To define a blank in a Fill in the Blank Question, the desired answer must be surrounded by curly braces, e.g. Mary had a little {lamb}(in this case "lamb" would be the correct answer that must be in the blank.) There can be any number of blanks in a question. Also, multiple possible answers can exists by placed "-OR-" between the answer possibilities. For example:
{California-OR-Colorado-OR-Connecticut} is one of the states that starts with C. {utah} is the only state that starts with u.
Be sure that the "-OR-" is all in capitals.
Multiple Calculations:
A multiple calculation question is much like a calculation question except that it has multiple parts that use the same variables. The variables are defined in the question textarea just like they are in a calculation question. When you click "Define Variables/Create Parts", two parts will be created unless you put a specific number in the textbox labeled "Parts:" 3 will create 3 parts, 4 will create 4 parts, etc. Each part has its own question textarea, formula, margin of error, and units. These are identical to calculation question rules except that new variables cannot be defined in the parts. Also each part receives its own hint.
The add button at the bottom of the question adds another part to the question. Every part after Part 2 also has a "remove part" button that will remove that part.
Multiple Choice:
When you define a multiple choice question, five empty boxes appear with radio buttons to their left. The third through fifth boxes have a remove button next to them, and an add button is underneath. Put answers in all the boxes and add boxes as necessary. Select the radio button of the correct answer. Remove any excess answer boxes.
Short Answer:
For a short answer question, you must define an answer, only one possible answer, and you can choose whether or not to ignore capitalization by checking or unchecking the ignore capitalization checkbox.
Clicking on "Print" opens a print version of the assignment in a new tab or window. The calculation questions will randomly define the variables, and after the worksheet version of the review there is an answer key. If you have extraneous pictures that you do not wish to print with the worksheet you can click on them and they will no longer be printed. The worksheet and answer key parts of the print page are automatically printed on separate sheets.
The only fields that must be filled out on the "New Assignment" page are the subject and Number of Questions. If you fill in the assignment name, due date, and assigned date they will be automatically filled into the header of the new assignment. The number of questions requested will automatically create the same number of blank questions in the new assignment form. Click "Next" to move on to the edit assignment page.
Go to view assignment page help to learn more about the elements necessary to create an assignment.
Clicking on View Drafts will show you a list of saved drafts. Clicking on the draft name will open the draft in the edit assignment page. Clickin on Discard Draft will delete the draft.
This link takes you to the student homepage.
The Template page allows you to change the look of your website. The sidebar, heading, navigation bar, and mainpage picture can all be changed by clicking browse, choosing a picture, clicking okay and finally clicking upload. The picture for the corner, header, and sidebar can also be completely removed if desired by clicking "remove," and will be replaced by the foreground or background color. The foreground color and background color are determined by the RGB numbers at the top and and bottom of the page. The numbers can go from 0 to 255. The higher the number the more of that color is in the mix. Common colors and their RGB definitions can be found online.
By typing words in the header text, higher text, and lower text boxes, you can also change the text of the website. In order for the changes to take effect, you must click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page. Clicking "Teacher Homepage" will return you to the teacher's homepage.