Typical Online Course

Also, once you log into D2L, you will see a Demo Course link in the Help For Student widget. This is also a helpful tool.

So you are probably wondering what a typical online course looks like or what consistent items are in an online course. You should know that every instructor has the freedom to develop their own online course that best reflects their course content and their teaching style, but generally all courses in the learning management system have the same features.

Course Homepage

Every online course will have a course homepage that contains boxes, or widgets, filled with important course information. There can be News (check a few times a week), our College Copyright Statement, and Calendar in these nuggets.

(Click on the image to view in full size.)

Content

The Content tool will contain all your course content. Content can be placed into modules, that can be labeled as modules, weeks, units, or folders. Your course content area may contain a course information folder that can contain files and discussions forums that get you ready to start the class. The rest of the folders in the content area can contain drop boxes (where you can drop in assignments), discussion forums (for you to discuss a topic), files  (that may be supplemental info such as PowerPoints, Word docs, PDFs, etc.), or links (our to Web sites). Lastly, your instructor may choose to create a discussion forum for students to ask and answer class questions.

Discussions

The Discussions tab contains Discussion Forums and Topics. These may also be linked to in the Content tool. 

Dropbox

The Dropbox tool contains Dropboxes. These may also be linked to in the Content tool. 

Quizzes

The Quizzes tool contains Quizzes. These may also be linked to in the Content tool. 

Grades

The Grades tool contains the Gradebook.

Classlist

The Classlist tool contains the Classlist with classmate and instructor photos (if they have loaded them in their profiles) and email addresses.