Western Online
Using the Content Tool to Add Content

Welcome

Welcome to the Western Online: Using the Content Tool to Add Content online tutorial brought to you by the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research. This tutorial contains information on how to build learning modules in Western Online by using the Content tool.

Objectives

After completing this tutorial you will be able to:

This tutorial uses text poppers. Text poppers are words or images that you can hover over to get more information. Hover over the words Text Popper below to see an example.

Text Popper

This tutorial also uses videos to help demonstrate the actions being taught. Whenever you see the following video clip icon on the lower left of the page, click on it to view the video.

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You must have Quicktime installed on your computer in order to view the videos. You can download Quicktime here.

Use the links above and below to navigate through the tutorial.

Content Tool

Using the content tool you can create modules and topics to organize your course content. You can manage the content in your course, such as edit, copy, delete, move and reorder topics or modules. You can also select multiple items to edit, copy, delete or move.

What are Learning Modules

Learning modules allow you to organize your course material and separate them into units of instruction. You can create learning modules for each section of your course and name them whatever you want; units, week, chapters, modules, etc.

Inside each module will contain all of the pertinent information including reading material, PowerPoint notes, discussions, assignments, quizzes, etc. The items within a module are called Topics.

The following is an example outline of a fully online podcasting course. All course material will be delivered to the students through the Western Online system. There are six learning modules and each module contains it's own content. Each item in the module is a topic.

Please note: This just an example. There could be more or less modules depending on the length of the course and amount of material.

Below is an example of how this outline will look in the Content tool once they have been created.

modules_example.png

Below is an example of how this same set of modules will look to the students.

modules_example2.png

Another example would be if you are teaching a face-2-face course and only use Western Online to post your course documents.

Creating Modules

The create a learning module you will use the Content tool. All modules created using the content tool will appear in the Content Brower widget on your course home page.

To create a module do the following:

content1.png

Hover over each item below to get a closer look:

When you are finished click the Save and Close button at the bottom of the page.

 

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Creating Topics

Now that you have created a module you will want to add topics to the module. Topics are links to content. For example, you can link to a discussion that you created in the Discusssions tool, a quiz that you created in the Quizzes tool, etc. You can also upload files as topics such as PDF's, word docs, and powerpoint docs. When you upload a file as a topic it puts the file in the Manage Files area and then creates a link to it in your module.

The diagram below shows two modules each containing six topics. These topics actually link to items in the course. So if you delete the topic from the module, only the link is gone, not the actual item itself.

module-diagram.png

To add a topic do the following:

topics.png

New File

When you create a new file you are creating an actual HTML web page that will open directly into the D2L window. The HTML page will save to the Manage Files area and a link is created in your module.

To create a new file do the following:

Hover over each item below to get a closer look:

When you are finished click the Save and Close button at the bottom of the page.

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New Course File

This option allows you to create a new topic using an existing file from the course. It can be an HTML file that you created using the previous method or a document you uploaded to the Manage Files area. Basically, anything that is in your Manage Files area is a Course File.

To add a new course file do the following:

Hover over each item below to get a closer look:

When you are finished click the Save and Close button at the bottom of the page.

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Upload File

This option allows you to create a new topic by uploading and linking to a file from your computer such as a word document or PDF file.

To upload a new file do the following:

Hover over each item below to get a closer look:

When you are finished click the Save and Close button at the bottom of the page.

movies.png

Quicklink

This option allows you to create a new topic by linking to most anything including course material (discussions, quizzes, etc.), a page on the internet or an object from the Learning Object Repository.

To add a quicklink do the following:

Hover over each item below to get a closer look:

 When you are finished click the Save and Close button at the bottom of the page.

movies.png

Reording Modules and Topics

You can reorder modules as well as topics within modules. To reorder do the following:

reorder_modules.png

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Editing a Module or Topic 

You may find that you need to edit a module or topic. You may need to change the name or perhaps move a topic from one module to another.

To edit do the following:

edit_module.png

Self Check

Answer the following questions to check your knowledge of the material presented.

 Self Check Question 1

 Self Check Question 2

 Self Check Question 3

 Self Check Question 4

 Self Check Question 5

Summary

Congratulations! You have completed the Western Online: Using the Content Tool to Add Content online tutorial. You have learned how to create and edit learning modules using the Content tool, create and edit a new Topic in a learning module using the Content tool, and how to reorder modules and topics.

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