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Course Home & News for Instructors

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The Course Home Page
The Course Home page is the first page your students see when they enter your course.  It is a great place to keep welcome messages and news items.  This page provides you and your students with access to D2L's Schedule tool. You may also change a variety of personal preferences or use the Role Switch tool to view your course site as a student would.
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The Course Home - Welcome Box
The Welcome Box is contains personal information; every user can view and modify their own.   This tool provides access to a user's photo, preferences, profile, locker and personal progress.
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The Course Home - Events Widget
The Events widget displays upcoming scheduled occurances, such as assignment and exam due dates.  Users see events for all courses in which they are currently enrolled.
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The Course Home - News Widget
The News widget allows you to update your students on new developments in your course.  Since it is located in the center of your Course Home page, students can immediately see when you change or add items here.
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The Course Home - Library Search Widget
The UA Library maintains this search widget.  It is available in D2L in order to make searching for Library Resources more convenient.  If you have any questions or problems regarding the Library Search, please contact the UA Library at askreserves@u.library.arizona.edu.

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Common Uses 

  • Welcome Your Students: A News item can simply be a friendly welcome message with an overview of the course.  It can be a great way to set the tone for your students; it also offers guidance as they enter your class's online space.  Many instructors include an image or animation that relates to their course.  A picture of yourself can also be a welcome sight, particularly for a fully online course in which the students may never meet you in person. (For more information about embedding links and media, please visit the HTML Editor page.)  Some instructors also use the News section offer information to suggest the "next stop" for students.  You can embed links to other parts of your D2L site, general resources, department websites, or even the student D2L Help pages.
  • Keep Your Students Updated: News items appear in the center of the Course Home page.  They are easily added, removed, and reordered, so the News tool is designed to be an easy way to give your students a quick "heads up" that an assignment due date has changed, that class has been cancelled, or that a grade has been posted.
  • Include Your Course Events in Students' Schedules: The Events widget on the lower left section of the Course Home page contains upcoming dates that have been entered in your course's schedule. The Discussions, Dropbox and Quizzes tools can all be integraded into your course's schedule as well.

 

For more information, please visit the Course Home or News pages.