Student Presentations

 


What do you want to do?

Creating a Group Manually | Top

Note: Depending on administrator settings, students may be able to view:

    • members of all presentation groups.
    • only the members of their own presentation group.
    • no group members at all.
  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. Under Actions, click Add group. The Group Information screen appears.
  3. In the Group name text box, enter a name for the group.
  4. Students who have not yet been assigned to a group are listed alphabetically under Class List by last name, first name, and User ID.
    1. To display all students in the class, select Show all students.
    2. In the Status column, select the students you want to belong to the group.
  5. In the Description text box, enter the instructions for the project. You can also use the Description text box to create a link to a page you have previously created (such as a project assignment) using HTML coding.
  6. To create a discussion area for this group:
    1. Under Topic, select Create a discussion topic for this group. In the Name text box, a discussion topic name is entered that matches the group name.
    2. To rename the discussion topic, clear the Update the topic name to match the group name check box and, in the Name text box, enter a new name for the discussion topic.
    3. To include yourself as a member of the discussion, select Include instructor as a member of this discussion.
  7. Under Availability, select one of the following options:
    • Public
    • Private
    • Specify date. From the Month, Day, Year, Hour, and Minute drop-down lists, select the date and time that the presentation will be available to view by your students.
    • Select Use default settings to select the availability as specified in Changing Presentation Settings. If you have not specified a default availability for all Student Presentations, the default is set to public.
  8. Click Add. The group is added to the Group List table.
Note:
  • You can create a group that does not contain any students by naming the group but selecting no students from the Class List. You can then add students to that empty group at a later date. You can also reorganize existing groups at a later date, using the Edit Group feature.
  • The project description may be added after the groups have been created.
  • A student may belong to more than one group.
  • The Class List can be sorted by column by clicking the Sort link at the top of the column.
  • The Mail icon does not appear until you add students to the group.
  • Students gain access to their discussion group through the Discussions tool.

Creating a Group Using the Group Generator | Top

Notes:

  • All existing groups must be deleted before the group generator can be used.
  • Depending on administrator settings, students may be able to view:
    • members of all presentation groups.
    • only the members of their own presentation group.
    • no group members at all.
  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. Under Actions, click Generate groups. The Group Generator screen appears.
  3. Under Group, select one of the methods to generate groups and enter the applicable number in the text box.
  4. Under Additional Students, select how the extra students should be handled.
  5. Under Group Discussions, select if you want to create discussion topics for the groups and if you want to be a member of each discussion.
  6. Click Generate. The Presentations screen appears. The groups are added to the Group List table. The groups are named Group01, Group02, etc.

Changing Presentation Settings | Top

This option allows you to set a default availability for all Student Presentations.

  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. Under Actions, click Change settings. The Presentation Settings screen appears.
  3. To set a default availability for all Student Presentations, select one of the following three options:
    • Public
    • Private
    • Specify an availability date. From the Month, Day, Year, Hour, and Minute drop-down lists, select the date and time that all presentations will be available to view by the class.
  4. Click Update. The Presentations screen appears. The default presentation availability is set.

Communicating with the Group | Top

Note: Depending on administrator settings, the mail icon for presentation groups may not be available to students.

  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. In the Group List table, there is a Mail column that contains a mail icon for each group. Note: If you have created a group with no students in it, the mail icon will not appear until you add students.
  3. Send mail by clicking the mail icon. A new window appears and the Send to text box contains the group members.
  4. Enter your mail message. For more information, see Mail.
Deleting Groups | Top

Use this feature to delete presentation groups before creating new ones.

Warning:

  • All of the files relating to the presentation groups are also deleted, and are unrecoverable.
  • When you delete a presentation group that has an associated discussion topic, only the presentation group is deleted. The associated discussion topic is not deleted. To delete a discussion topic, see Deleting a discussion topic.

Deleting One Group

  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. From the Group List table, select the group that you want to delete.
  3. Under Actions, click Delete. A warning message appears.
  4. Click OK. The Presentation screen appears and the group is deleted.

Deleting All Groups

Note: If you delete all groups, the default presentation availability, as specified in Changing Presentation Settings, will be reset to public.

  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. Under Actions, click Delete all. A warning message appears.
  3. Click OK. A final warning message appears.
  4. Click OK. The Presentation screen appears and all groups are deleted.

Editing Groups | Top

You can edit the group name, add or edit the description, create a discussion topic, edit the topic name, or add or remove students from the group.

Note: Depending on administrator settings, students may be able to view:

    • members of all presentation groups.
    • only the members of their own presentation group.
    • no group members at all.
  1. From the Course Menu, click Presentations. The Presentations screen appears.
  2. From the Group List table, select the group that you want to edit.
  3. Under Actions, click Edit. The Group Information screen appears.
  4. Edit the group information as required:
    • To edit the group name, in the Group name text box, edit the name.
    • To edit the description, in the Description text box, add or edit a description for the project.
    • To create a discussion area for the group and include yourself as a member, select Create a discussion topic for this group and Include Instructor as a member of this discussion. In the Name text box, a discussion topic name is entered that matches the group name.
    • To edit the discussion topic name, clear the Update the topic name to match the group name check box and, in the Name text box, edit the topic name.
    • To change presentation availability, select one of the following four options:
      • Public
      • Private
      • Specify date. From the Month, Day, Year, Hour, and Minute drop-down lists, select the date and time that the presentation will be available to view by the class.
      • Use default setting to select the availability as specified in Changing Presentation Settings. If you have not specified a default availability for all Student Presentations, the default is set to public.
    • To add or remove students from the group, under Class List, select or clear the check box beside the students' names.

    Note: To access group presentation submissions, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the group name under the student_pres folder.

  5. Click Update. The Presentations screen appears and the group information is updated.

Viewing the Students' Work | Top

All group presentation submissions are stored in Manage Files in the My-Files folder in a subfolder called student_pres. The student_pres folder contains a subfolder for each group. The group subfolders are automatically created when you add or generate groups in Presentations. The group subfolder names are identical to the group names.

  1. From the Control Panel, click Manage Files. The Manage Files screen appears.
  2. Click the My-Files folder. The contents of the folder are displayed.
  3. Click the student-pres subfolder. The group subfolders are displayed.
  4. To view a group's submissions, click the group name.
Helping Students to Get Started | Top

Your student's view of Student Presentations varies from the designer view in a number of ways. For example, to upload completed presentations, students must navigate through a series of screens that you, as a designer, do not see. The following set of instructions is written with the student in mind.

Note: Depending on administrator settings, students may be able to view members of all presentation groups, only the members of their own presentation group, or no group members at all.

A presentation is done in two steps: first, you create the Web presentation as a set of linked HTML pages; and then you upload it to WebCT. Note: You will have to upload your presentation one file at a time. If you want to upload multiple files at once, zip them first using WinZip (PC), ZipIt (Mac), or another file compression application and then upload the .zip file.

  1. From the Student Presentations screen, locate the group for which you want to upload files and in the Files column, click Edit. The Folders and Files screen appears. Note: Only groups to which you have been assigned can be edited.
  2. Under Options: Files, click Upload. The Upload File screen appears.
  3. Upload your files:
    1. Next to Filename, click Browse.
    2. Locate and select the file you want to upload. The path and filename of your attachment appears in the Attachments text box.
    3. From the Destination folder drop-down list, select a folder in which to save your file.
    4. Click Upload. The File Options screen appears, and the uploaded file appears as a link under the folder you selected.
    5. If you want to view the contents of a folder, click the folder name.
    6. If you want to view the file, click the file name.
  4. For each presentation file that needs to be uploaded, repeat steps 3 to 8.

Note:

  • Name the homepage for your presentation index.html. This page contains the links to the other group documents. These documents should be linked back to the index.html file.
  • Filenames can contain any of the following characters: a – z, A – Z, 0 – 9, _, &, ( ), –, ., and ~
    Note: The tilde (~) cannot be used as the first character in the filename.
  • You can make changes to your presentation after you have uploaded it, but be aware that each member of your group can edit your presentation pages. Your group should establish a protocol for making changes to your presentation, so that you don't overwrite changes that someone else has made.
  • Save all files with an .html extension.