Week 0: induction
Welcome to Teaching International Students!
The course proper starts on Monday 25 February 2013, and there are full details about the learning activities in the Week 1 briefing document and podcast.
During this Induction week, we all need to meet each other and become familiar with the virtual learning environment, so these induction activities aim to help you get to know the environment and the people you will be sharing it with.
Task 1: Familiarising yourself with Brookes Virtual (5 minutes)
The welcome email described how to login to Brookes Virtual. Thank you for doing this!
Please post a message in the Arrivals Lounge to let us know that you have arrived safely.
We will introduce ourselves more thoroughly with the profiles we create in task 3 (see below) and spend more time talking to each other in Week 1 when we post our 'cultural bump' stories, but do feel free to begin talking amongst yourselves now, perhaps in the 'cafe space', which we've provided for general chat.
If you get stuck, post in the 'Your queries about the course technologies' discussion topic to ask for help - remember that if you're stuck, someone else probably is too. We'll be checking that discussion to try and solve any problems you have, but if you can answer someone else's question, please do!
Task 2: Time management quiz (10 minutes)
Taking part in a distance learning course makes all sorts of demands on your working and home life. If online learning is new to you, these demands are likely to be even more so.
Based on the experiences of many previous course members, we have created a lighthearted look at some of the issues we think it will be helpful to think about before the course start.
Take the time management quiz.
Task 3: Create a profile (20 minutes)
Complete your Moodle profile, and fill it in with the information you want to share. You might want to include information about:
- Your current job and role and how you came to be there
- Where your position is located (perhaps within the institution, faculty, department, subject centre?)
- You might also like to include some non-work related information in your profile, for example, about your family, interests, area you live etc.
- If you would like to share your email address with other course participants, you should do it here as we do not publish your email address elsewhere
- It’s useful to add a picture to help identify you in the discussion boards. You don’t have to use a photo of yourself unless you want to.
