Courses


Our Course system allows teachers to create online learning environments that make use of Visionlearning resources.

The Course system allows you to create a course homepage and syllabus, incorporate any of our Visionlearning modules in a customized sequence, post announcements for students, track student quiz scores, communicate with students, and more. The information below is meant to help you create a Course. If you are a student needing help accessing your instructor's Course, please click here.

Getting Started

In order to create a Course, you need to register with our system. Registration is free - simply click the "Register" link on the black bar above and complete the basic information. Don't worry - we won't bother you with lots of emails or share your information. Our privacy policy ensures that any personal information you provide will not be shared with others unless you have provided explicit written consent.

Once you have registered and logged in, it's time to create your course.

Creating a course

The first step is to go to our Classroom section and select the blue "Create a new course" button beneath the Courses tab. The system will then prompt you to enter information about your course, including the name, section number (if you have one), grade level, school affiliation, and location. Adding accurate information here helps us catalog your course correctly in the system so that participants can find it easily.

Please note: "Student Screening" allows you to choose who may enroll in your course. With screening off, any Visionlearning user will be able to join your course. Keeping Student Screening on means that you must grant permission to users in order for them to view the Course.

When you are done with your course information, select the "Update" button at the bottom of the screen.

The blue My Courses menu on the left should now show your course name. Select your course to view the list of pages within it. The Course system includes a variety of pages that we have found most useful to educators:

  • Home - contains the course information you added when creating the course. This will show in our directory and helps students learn about the course's focus.

  • Syllabus - is a customized plan that you can create for the course. Include important dates, assignments, and any other time-sensitive information here.

  • Announcements - allows you to communicate with your students directly without having to send emails. Whenever a student enters the course, the Announcements will show on the Home page.

  • Students - is a list of users who have joined your course.

  • Quizzes - provides the scores for students who have taken quizzes in your course. This provides a quick and easy way to see who has taken a module quiz, and how they performed.

  • Course info - allows you to update your course information at any time. This will also update within our catalog.

  • Modules - is the list of Visionlearning modules you have chosen for students to read.

Adding Modules

You can add or edit modules within your course at any time. This is especially helpful when new content becomes available after your course has started.

To add modules, simply select the "add" button beneath the Modules link in your course navigation. This will open a new screen stating your course name, and showing a list of disciplines. Open the discipline tabs to view the modules within and select the box next to modules you wish to include in your course. Once you have finished selecting all of the modules for your course, click the "Update" button at the bottom of the page.

In your course menu, you should now see a small red box next to the Modules link with a number in it. This number indicates how many modules are contained in your course. Select the link to view the list of modules.

To edit the modules for your course, select the "edit" link at the bottom of the menu and check/uncheck the boxes as you did when adding.

Tracking students

If students are expected to complete quizzes for credit or tracking, then they MUST take the quiz from within the Course. Even if they are logged into the site, unless they are accessing the quiz from within the Course, their scores will not be recorded for you to see.

The rationale for this is simple: Some students are enrolled in more than one Course, and these courses might include the same modules. It would not be fair for a student to take a quiz once and have their scores applied to all the Courses they are enrolled in.

Please make sure students are accessing material through your Course if they want to receive credit.

Finding a Course

If you are a student trying to find your instructor's course, you can find it through our course catalog. Select the blue Classroom tab at the top of the page. Under Courses, you can look for the course either by grade level or location.

When you've found the course you are looking for, select the link and then click the "Enroll" button at the bottom of the page. When your instructor approves your enrollment, you will be able to enter the course.