The first time WebCT user may want to focus on three main areas within WebCT for TIE online courses: the Calendar, the Discussions, and the Assignments.  Each of these can be accessed from a link on the Course Menu bar at the left side of the page in WebCT.

Calendar

The calendar is pretty straightforward; it looks on screen like a typical calendar and lists upcoming events such as the session focus for the week or an assignment due date.  Because the calendar provides links to resources (such as videos) and materials, it is an easy one-stop-shop to get where you need to go for the workshop.

Discussions

This area provides a place for you to dialogue with your classmates.  Usually the instructor will post a question, and you can view the question by clicking on the title of the post and it will open in a separate window for you to read.  To provide a reply to the post, you can click the Reply button in that same window.  A new window will open where you can type your message and click Post, which will send your message to the discussion board.

The look of the discussions area continually changes every time you log in because everyone in the class keeps adding new postings.   When you click on a discussion topic, you will see a list of postings people have placed within that topic. If you click on one of those postings, it should open on the screen for you to read.

This is considered to be a "threaded" discussion board because responses to questions are listed directly below and indented slightly to help you keep track of who is responding to what.  For this reason, when you want to post a new question or topic, you should click on Compose message instead of replying to the previous post.

You can move to the next post by clicking on the little arrow icons at the bottom of a message, or by closing the small window and clicking on the next message subject.  Unread messages appear in boldface type.  If you cannot see the messages you have already read, it is likely that you have selected the [Display:Unread] button.  Click on the [Display:All] button to show all of the posts for a topic.

It is recommended that participants check the discussion board a minimum of twice a week to keep up with the conversation(s).

Assignments

The Assignment area lists the work that is to be turned into the instructor for completion of the workshop. Click on the title of the assignment for more information about what is to be completed or to submit your work.  At the top will be the Assignment Information, a description of what to do, and at the bottom you will see an area labeled Submit Assignment.

To submit your assignment, you will first want to have your work saved somewhere on your own computer or storage device.  In the Submit Assignment area, click on the button Upload File, which will give you a prompt for finding the file to upload (or save to WebCT).  When the file has been loaded, the name will appear on your screen just above a button labeled Submit assignment.  You need to click this button before the assignment as actually been submitted.  When you are done, you will see Status:  Submitted and the name of the file listed.