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Creating Content Pages and Assignments

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  • Let’s take a look at the process for building a Content Page.

    Here is a group page for a US History course. Let’s say that we wanted to create a page for the students. It will be a page with a video, multichoice question and a short answer essay question.

  • DO THIS:

    • Click the Add.. pull-down menu in the Content section
    • Select A NEW PAGE


    This takes you to the CREATE NEW PAGE - PAGE INFO screen.

  • DO THIS:

    • Fill in the page title -- in the example above the history teacher has titled the page "Columbian Exposition 1893"
    • Copyright section: Note that by default this field is filled out with YOU as the content creator and copyright owner. If  you copied the content from a copyrighted source, it is your responsibility to enter the correct copyright information here. To edit the copyright information for the page, click CHANGE
    • Link to: By checking this box, the learning page will be linked to your course/group
    • Click the CREATE NEW PAGE button

  • Good going. You’ve now created your basic page, but at this point it’s really just a placeholder. There’s no content in it yet. To add content you need to begin adding sections by using the ADD NEW SECTION button (or) the QUICK ADD pull-down menu.

    Notice that by default there is already a BLANK SECTION waiting for you to edit and add content into.

    Next, let’s add a video from YouTube in the blank section.


    DO THIS:

    • Click the EDIT SECTION link in the upper right corner of the section labeled Blank Section.

  • Notice that the page asks you, "What do you want in your section." You know have a menu of content options from which to select.

    DO THIS:

    • Click YouTube in the portion of the menu that offers External content elements (i.e., content from outside of Ecto)

  • DO THIS:

    • Assuming you have already visisted YouTube.com and found the movie you want, copy and paste the YouTube URL into the YouTube Movie URL field
    • If you want your page to include the summary and description of the movie from YouTube, check the box to Show YouTube Summary and Data
    • Click the CREATE button

  • As you can see, the video now appears in your learning page. 

    Let’s say we want to add questions to accompany the video. To do this we will need to create a new sections on the page. Let’s add a multichoice question and an essay question. We’ll add the multichoice question first.

    DO THIS:

    • Click the ADD NEW SECTION button
    • Note that once you are a bit more familiar with the process you could use the QUICK ADD pull-down menu

  • Notice that there a number of menu options for Gradable Items that you can create in Ecto and add to your pages.

     Some of these items, such as Multiple Choice Questions, are auto-graded in Ecto, which can save you time and allow you to rapidly guage your students' progress and comprehension.  

    DO THIS:

    • Click the Multiple Choice Question link in the Gradable Items section

  • This is the multichoice question creation page.

    Take a minute to note the layout and the various sections.

    • Enter question text (stem) in the rich text editing field at the top and then enter the answer choices in the Answer Text (distractors) fields below.
    • There are only 2 Answer Text fields to begin with but you can add as many as you like by clicking Add More Answer Choices at the bottom of the screen.
    • Above the answer choice fields is a pull down menu that let’s you select the “Choose Best Answer” or “Select All that Apply” format.
    • Note that underneath each Answer Choice field Ecto asks: Do you want to create an answer explanation/feedback? Clicking these links allows you to enter feedback to accompany the answer choice—for instance, explaining why it was incorrect or correct.
    • When you have filled in the answer choice fields don’t forget to check the radio button labeled “This Answer is correct” in the field that contains your correct answer choice.

  • So, to complete our example we will take the following steps:

    DO THIS:

    • Enter the question text
    • Click ADD MORE ANSWER CHOICES to create a third answer choice field
    • Enter the three answer choices
    • Click Do you want to create an answer explanation/feedback? to add the explanation text for the correct answer
    • Mark which answer is correct
    • Click CREATE

  • Now let’s add another question about the video. This time, let’s make it a SHORT ANSWER question.

    DO THIS:

    • Try clicking QUICK ADD pull-down menu this time instead of CREATE NEW SECTION. The QUICK ADD pull-down menu is on the right under Content Actions
    • Select SHORT ANSWER

  • DO THIS:

    • Type your short answer question into the Question field
    • If you wish to include the answer for the students' to review after they submit their response, you can type it in the Answer field
    • By checking the and create rubric box, you can use the answer to create a rubric for your grading purposes--the answer will automatically become part of the gradbook entry associated with the question
    • Click CREATE

    Now you can see the short answer question you created at the bottom of the page.

  • Now let’s take a closer look at how to edit the page. Once you have created your content page, if it is a page that you intent to use as an assignment, you will probably want to enter  point values for the questions/ You may also want to rearrang the sections on page.

    • Notice the red boxes in the screenshot above
    • The edit section link allows you to go in and edit the actual text in section
    • The drag to reorder button allows you to rearrange the sections on the page by dragging and dropping them
    • At the bottom of each gradable section is a field that allows you to enter a point value 
  • ADMINISTRATOR FUNCTIONS

    As the adminstrator of the page, you can control when it will become visible to your group. To keep the page hidden until a particular date click,

    DO THIS:

    • Click the EDIT PAGE INFO button on the right hand side of the page
    • This takes you to the EDIT PAGE INFO area --note the HIDDEN UNTIL field highlighted in the example screenshot
    • Fill in the HIDDEN UNTIL field with the date (DD/MM/YYYY) that you wish the page to become visible to your group

  • CREATING AN ASSIGNMENT

    A content page does not have to be a quiz or an assignment. It could be purely informational! You might even create a content page as a "sandbox" to store information.

    Quite often, however, as in the example on this page, the content page you are assembling is homework or a quiz. Let's say that you've created a content page which is a comprehension quiz for a US History Course, incorporating a YouTube movie, a multichoice question and a short answer question.

    You associated the page with the group page that belongs to the history course you are teaching. As a result, it appears on your group page. You've marked it HIDDEN until the date of the quiz so only you can see it.

    In order to administer the page as a quiz, you need to CREATE AN ASSIGNMENT and associate the assignment with the content page.  Let's take a look at how to do this:

    From your group page, 

    DO THIS:

    • Click NEW ASSIGNMENT

     

     

     

  • Now you are on the NEW ASSIGNMENT page. Begin by entering the basic information.

    • Available date field: this is when the assignment will become available to the students
    • Due date field: after this date, the students are unable to submit the assignment
    • Calendar icon: Note the calendar icon -- if you click it a clickable calendar appears, which makes it easier to enter the dates
    • When you have finished filling out the fields click CREATE

  • Once you click CREATE, you will see a list of the pages you've created at the bottom of the screen.

    • Select the page you want to assign by clicking on it
    • The ECTO URL for the assignment will automatically appear in the URL field
    • Then click ADD
    • When you are finished click UPDATE 
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