Welcome to Sonny's Online Orientation !!

As I told my students, my role in the course is a helper who can help you do a better job in the course.  With your involvement, conscientious, and efforts, I would assure you your success in this course is expected.

This orientation is designed for Sonny’s online courses.  Becoming familiar with the course’ procedures, system and requirements will improve your performance and experience with me.  Please pay attention to the information provided.

It is also required to review course’s syllabus and other materials, which are posted in Canvas website, (Canvas.losrios.edu.)  The Canvas site is an official Los Rios eLearning web site.  I will show you how to access the web and get to the information.

 

canvas.losrios.edu

 

The web address for the Canvas web site is canvas.losrios.edu. The address is case insensitive.  Students of the course should be able to access the course content by using your student id number and a password through this website after the starting day of the class.  The following is the instruction to the web site.

1. connect to the internet

You need to make sure your computer is internet ready and the connection to the internet service provider (ISP) is hot.

Launch a browser(Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or others)

 

2. Type “canvas.losrios.edu” in the address area (AUL, address universal locator) and hit enter key. 

3. You should see the canvas, Los Rios eLearning, web site comes up. You can use this page to provide username and password to log in to the canvas website.

4.  The lower portion of the page also provides some useful information if you have any question to login.

 

 

5. If you don’t have your student ID handy you can go to https://www.losrios.edu/cgi-bin/lrc/lookup.cgi to find out.

 

6. When you login to the Canvas site, you should see a Dashboard page with your registered courses list.

Other resources:

Canvas Student Guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-4121

Search the canvas guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/guides/

Please review each individual topic to understand more about the canvas system

 

Common Course Menu

The following section explains some of the common menu items in my courses:

1.  When you enter into any one of my courses you should see a very similar screen like the picture on the right.

Common Course Navigation Menu

 

Course information

 

2. The right side picture is the common course navigation menu items.  When you click on any of the items, it will lead you to a particular area.  The blue background and white letters navigation menu item indicates that the item is displayed in right pane of the screen.

3. If you click on the “Home” menu item, you should see the first page of the course.  In this page you can see some recent announcements, coming up events, calendar link etc.

4. Click on the “Announcements” menu item, the computer will lead you to announcements page.  In this page you can see the recently posted announcements.  

 

 

5.  Click on the “Assignments” menu item you will be leaded to assignments page. You can sort the assignments by date or by type.  The figure on the right is sorted by date. You can do quizzes or submit your assignments by click into each Q or A link.

6.  When you click on the Discussions” menu item, it will lead you to the Discussion page.  You can post questions and provide answers at here for other students.

7.  Click on the “Grades” menu item, you will go to the Grades page.  The class scores is listed in this page. 

8. If you click on the “Modules” menu item you should see course Documents, video, Reference Books and etc. items.  If you expend the Course Documents you can see and download PowerPoint slides for the class.  If you expend the Video you can see video links.  If you expand the Reference Books you can see some reference books.

 

9.  Click on the “Syllabus” menu item that will lead you to the syllabus page of the class.  In this page you can download the class syllabus in doc or pdf format. 

10. Click on the People menu item you will see all the participants of the class.

 

The E-Mail Etiquette

If we all follow the same guidelines, the communication efficiency will be improved.

1. Identify yourself by using your name, student id, return address, and course number.  Put the course number and purpose at the subject line.  Place your name and return e-mail address at the beginning of the message.  If you have a file to attach, please don’t forget to attach to the file

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2.  If you send me a question, be sure to include the word "question" in the subject heading for a quick response.

3.  The email is a way of communication that lack of facial, voice and body gesture to convey the message.  The message distortion could be great.  The same message can be interpreted into different purposes.  So, be careful on the term, caption, punctuation and etc.  We should put more please, thank you, and you are welcomed type of terms in email to smooth the communication.  

 

Zipping a file

  1. Zipping files will help us compress files and save several files into one zip file.  The file could be easier store or transferred in the internet mailing systems without any distortion or block.
  1. The Microsoft Windows (7 and later version) provide us a version of this type of software to zip a file.  You can right click a file or a folder you should be able to follow the right side of picture to zip a file.  You can also use a third party version to zip a file.

 

 

Print Screen function

In this section you will learn “print screen”, paste the screen image to a word document, and save a word document.

1. Start Microsoft word application and bring up a blank document.

2. Click on the “Insert” tab and “Table” group on the ribbon menu.  Insert two rolls and several columns first.

3. Type in the instructions steps in the left rows.  If you need extra columns, when your cursor inside the table, use the “tab” key to add more columns.

4. After you finish the require steps, push the “print screen key” on the key board.  Go back to the word document and place the inserting point at the next row of the same column, which is next to the instruction.  Click on the “Edit” menu and “Paste” submenu.  The image should be displayed in the row.

5.  You can adjust the image by cropping or dragging the picture.

Cropping is cutting out an image where you do not need it.

Dragging can minimize or enlarge the picture.

6.  Double click on the picture; you should see the picture tool at the title bar area. 

7. Select the picture tools format tab, in the Size group, you should see the crop menu. 

8. If we want to cut some area of the picture off please follow from step 8 to 10.  Click on the crop and you should see the black short line at the edge of the picture. 

9. You can move your mouse to the short dash line and hold down on the line and move in toward to the center direction of the picture to cut the unwanted area. 

10. Click outside of the picture area to unselect the cropping function. 

11 If you want to size the picture please follow from step 11 to 13.  Click on the picture and you should see small circles around the edge of the picture.

12.  Move your mouse on the circle and hold on the circle.  Drag the circle toward to the center direction to minimize the size of the picture or again the center direction to enlarge the picture.

13.  Click outside of the picture area to unselect the sizing function. 

14.  To save the file by clicking the office button, save as menu. The save as dialog box shows.  Choose a location and word document. Provide a file name such as “exercise” in the picture.

 

At this point, you should feel very comfortable to login to the Canvas and access this class information.  If you have any question on accessing the web site you can contact me at huangc@crc.losrios.edu.

The syllabus will give you more detail about this class.  Read through the syllabus first, before you start your journey in this class. 

I usually use the Canvas to send out information or contact you.  So, please update your Canvas email address. 

Thanks again to choose my course and have fun..