Getting Started

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Getting Oriented

Your home page is packed with features organized into convenient groupings. To help you get your bearings, each section of your home page is briefly covered on this help page with links to other Help pages, where you will find the features covered in much greater detail.

Site Navigation

The primary navigation bar has links to features used most often by teachers. This navigation bar is located near the top of every page throughout School Loop. In addition to the navigation bar, the home page also includes four icons at the top of the page: LoopMail, Digital Locker, News, and Groups.

 

LoopMail

LoopMail is your safe and secure way to send messages to anyone with a School Loop account: students, teachers, and parents. Each LoopMail message is sent with the sender’s real name, but all email addresses are safely hidden. All of your messages are automatically routed to the address of your choice. More information about LoopMail is available on these help pages.

Digital Locker

We provide you with a personal digital locker, which you may fill with as many links and documents as you like. Each file does have a 20 MB limit, but otherwise your locker is bottomless. More information about the Digital Locker is available on these help pages.

News

The News icon links you to an archive of all news items published by you or for you. News items may have attached links and files. There’s also a convenient section at the bottom of the left column for current news items. More information about Publishing News is available on these help pages.

Groups and Group Projects

Staff members may create groups and add members to a group, including other staff, students and parents. Groups may be created for clubs, departments, classes – the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Each group gets its own web page, digital locker, discussions, listserv, news, and the ability to work on group projects. Details about a group project are listed in a special section of your home page. More information about Groups is available on these help pages.

Dashboard

 

The Dashboard area of your homepage houses information about the courses you teach. Your Dashboard contains:

• Assign Work and Publish Notes buttons –assignments and notes are published on both parent and student accounts.
• Show All/Hide Inactive button – toggles on and off to show or hide courses you don’t currently teach.
• The courses you teach – each course title links you to the corresponding course center, a special web site for your classes.
• Section Manager – organize your courses sections into the appropriate course center.
• Quick Links – easy access to each course’s calendar, web site, and gradebook.
• High Priority – a list of your students with grades lower than 70% in two or more classes or placed in a custom group created by school administrators.
• What people are seeing – the current items in your calendars and a link to view all your calendared items.
• What your student are talking about – when students post a comment about an assignment or reply to a previous post, you’ll see it here until the due date of that assignment

Toolbox

The links in your Toolbox expand your access to information to include the student record for any student in your school and the web site for any other staff member. Other tools give you the power to see other course websites, approve parent access to grades and LoopMail, select PublishingAides and view the archives of courses you have taught. You can also view the overall School Loop statistics for your school and for individual teachers. More information about the Toolbox is available on these help pages.

 

Discussions

The most recent discussion topics from your Groups, current assignments and news items, along with the number of replies and date of the most recent reply, are automatically listed in the Discussion area of your home page. Clicking on a discussion topic takes you to the discussion area for that group. You may start a new discussion using the convenient button without having to navigate your way to the group home page.