Introduction
All primary students and their parents have access to elements of SEQTA using their own login accounts. Parents will use their child’s login details until the parent portal is available in Semester Two. This login gives access to the teaching and learning programmes, learning resources, homework, assessment tasks and the results of marked and released assessments.
Teachers at JSR need to ensure that their SEQTA Programmes are set-up correctly and elements surrounding assessments are updated as needed. This document outlines the steps to achieve this and meet the SEQTA “Minimum Requirements” as set by the School.
SEQTA Programmes
To enable visibility of the SEQTA Programme, the following Settings need to be applied:
NOTE: Where programmes are “shared” between numerous classes and are being used by a number of teachers, then these setting should be applied by the teacher that is responsible for the SEQTA Programme. This will ensure that no unnecessary double-up of programmes will occur.
1) In the Cover page section of the Programme, ensure that the following are ticked and selected
a) Lesson outlines
b) All resources
c) Show all lessons and cover page.
2) Below these settings is the OUTLINE section and the SEQTA Learn and Engage OVERVIEW sections. The requirements for these sections vary depending on whether the SEQTA programme is for:
- The Primary School
- Middle School (7-9)
- Senior Secondary (10)
- Senior Secondary (11-12)
The instructions for manipulating the content in the OUTLINE and the OVERVIEW can be found in step 3 (page 4), but please first read the requirements for each year level on the following pages…
Primary School
OUTLINE:
The content of the outline is not visible to students and parents in SEQTA Learn or Engage. The content entered here is the course descriptor that appears on the report. This information must be agreed upon by all members of the teaching team for this programme and entered by the owner of the programme.
OVERVIEW:
The content of the Overview is what is seen by all students and parents when they first click on the course in SEQTA Learn and Engage.
- The Course Outline needs to be inserted in this section as it appears above.
3) Follow these steps to edit the content in the OUTLINE and the OVERVIEW sections of the SEQTA Cover Page.
OUTLINE:
These steps should be carried out by the owners of the programmes only
a) Go to the Programme Cover Page
b) Click on Edit Outline
c) Type in (or copy and paste in) the course descriptor as you would like it to read on the PP-6 reports.
OVERVIEW:
a) Go to the Programme Cover Page
b) Click on drop down tab to open the overview pop-up window.
4) In the Planning (formerly Edit programme) section of the Programme, there needs to be as a minimum a weekly breakdown of what is planned for the lesson(s) in that week. This should include:
a) a Topic title
b) any Homework that needs to be done (can be entered at the conclusion of a lesson).
c) Any additional resources that are needed by the students for this lesson, can be added using the Add resource button. For large volume of resources, teachers may opt to place these on eLearning and reference the eLearning location in the weekly outline instead.
d) Teachers who would like to provide additional lesson detail, are free to do so, but these are not part of the Minimum Requirements.
5) Teachers can use the Student/parent preview tab in the SEQTA Programme to get a sense of what the students will see in SEQTA Learn. This may be helpful, if you have made some formatting changes in your programme Outlines. The end result may look something like this:
Assessments
SEQTA Learn enables students to view any upcoming assessments on their respective screens. Students see the assessment, the due date and any details of the specific assessment task, based on what is attached to the assessment. This is controlled by manipulating the due date and flagging the assessment as “Visible”.
The results of marked assessments that have been entered into the Marks book can also be seen by students in SEQTA Learn. i.e. Once an assessment has been marked and entered into the green section of the SEQTA Marks book, visibility of this can be flagged for the students allowing them to see their results for the assessment. This is controlled by the teacher flagging the assessment as “Marked”.
The steps for this are thus:
a) Open up the Overview of Assessments screen of the SEQTA Programme.
What do the students see?
The students see the results on SEQTA Learn thus:
Essentially, they see their percentage mark. They also see the class average and highest mark. No individual results for other students are visible on their screens.
- Tasks listed in the Overview of Assessment screen, should have the assessment tasks themselves attached as pdf documents to the assessment (where possible). This is done thus:
b) In the Overview of assessments screen you will now be able to click on any assessment and make changes to it. All options are now visible on the one screen.
- Note it is important that an assessment has a Title, Weighting and Due date. It is important that this date is set correctly as this will impact on when a task shows up as upcoming.
- You will also note that this Assessment also has 2 resources. These have been added by clicking the Add resource button.
ALL ‘take-home’ assessment tasks require the task sheet to be added as a resource in the Overview of Assessments section. Tests and in-class assessments are not to be added.
NB: If staff intend to use the same or a similar test or in-class assessment in future years then this must not be added to eLearning or SEQTA as a resource, or made available to any student. Students sometimes request these for revision purposes after the test has taken place, but if you make the decision to release the in-class assessment item it cannot be used again in future years. We have had instances of resourceful students accessing past tests in the year above them via eLearning, who then sit the exact same test in a future year – resulting in an unfair outcome.
- Clicking on the Add resource button opens up a window like this:
Clicking on Add a file, will allow you to browse your computer for a document that you want to attach as a resource to the Assessment Task. This could be the Task itself or other resources needed to complete the task.
- You can also add web links as a resource if these are needed for the task completion.
Once all this is done, students are able to see the task as an upcoming assessment and all added resources.
What do the students see?
The students see the upcoming Assessments on SEQTA Learn.
- The task appears in the list of upcoming tasks for the student, as the due date has not been reached.
- The added resources are listed and students can click on these to instantly open these on their iPads.
Direct Messaging
Teacher’s are also able to use SEQTA to send “Direct Messages” to students. A direct message is not dissimilar to sending an email, but the correspondence is done using SEQTA directly and does not necessitate knowing a student’s email address. Direct messaging is more useful for direct communication that targets individual students, unlike a forum where the communication is visible to all the forum members.
1) The direct message can be written from any of the SEQTA screens by clicking on the New message icon in the top-right hand corner of the SEQTA workspaces. i.e.
2) Clicking on this icon will open up a screen thus:
By clicking in the Select student box and typing in students’ names will allow you to quickly select the direct message recipient(s).
- As in a regular email, add a Subject and compose your message.
- Clicking Send in the top-right hand corner will send the message.