Tools within the LMS

The LMS I am most familiar with is D2L. Desire2Learn is Gwinnett County's choice LMS, so I have familiarized myself with this resource, because I will be using this in the fall for my regular flipped classroom.

Here are some of the tools that I will be using in the fall. Some useful, some not so much, and some I am still figuring out:

This page is not available for most teachers. A select few of us are allowed to make courses to fit the needs of our school. Most courses that are already offered in the county have a template course. I will show you the bare bones of my future Economics course and the tools within the course.

The home page of the Economics Course has many navigation links and a News feed, Calendar View, and an Updates feed, which are all very useful to help keep communication at the forefront of my class.

 In the course content tab, I will use most of these tools:

• The most used for students and myself would be the "Content" button. This will open up the window to the actual assignment list. 
• As a teacher, I will utilize the "LOR" button, which is not available for students. This allows me to search pre-made lessons on my subject. "Why recreate the wheel, when you can go to the tire store." - Denton Elkins 
• The students have the ability to use the Locker feature, if they want to safe their work and assess it from any computer, home or school.

In the grading tab, I will use all of these tools:

• Discussions allows me to create a class discussion blog. This is a good way to interact with the students on an open forum assignment. Students can also view and reply to other students as well.
• Dropbox allows students to turn in work to me. It gives them a time stamp, so I can require a due date. Student can confidentially turn in their work and I can comment and return work.
• Grades will be a well used button by students, especially at the end of the course as they hope the grade fairy has sprinkled "A"s in every assignment.
• Quizzes is a button that directly links all assessments that are available in the course. I have the power to lock assessments, opening and closing them at certain times to keep them as authentic as possible. I can also create a quiz to have one, two, or unlimited chances for students to pass.

In the Interaction tab, I will need some extra time on most of these buttons:

• I will have another way of taking role through the "Gradebook" feature on the county's website. The classlist will be only useful to me to make sure the gradebook reflects those that are enrolled in my class.
• I do not think I will use the ePortfolio button yet, because I am not that familiar with this feature. I might utilize this more as I am teaching seniors and would want to have a assess tool to graduation requirements.
• I might not use the Online Rooms unless I need to create one for an EOCT seminar or study session.
• I am not familiar with the User Progress, but I might use it in data disaggregation and collection.
• The Pager feature is useful, but with a flipped classroom, raising hands still works just fine.
• In a flipped classroom, Seating Chart is useful. In a fully online class, not so much.

The notification bar warns me of any emails, messages, or announcements that the course or students might have. Also, it reminds me of my name and what I'm doing here.

*All images are borrowed from Gwinnett D2L's GIVE Center East Online course.