1. Go to www.learningplace.eq.edu.au and select Communication.
2. Select Log on at the bottom of the left side menu. Enter your Learning Place username and password.
3. Locate your chat room under List chat rooms or List projects or select Create a chat and complete the online form to create a new chat.
4. Select on the chat room title to enter into the chat room.
5. Type your message in the text box on the bottom left of the screen and press enter/return on your keyboard.
6. Change the colour of your text to help your messages stand out.
7. Staff can also add small images that are stored in individual image banks.
8. Select Close in the top right of the screen when you have finished.

Chat menu options

Options: Change your name, refresh rate and page size. If you are the moderator you can also change the room name and room options (eg. switch to comic chat)

Print: Save or print a paper copy of the log (archive) of the chat session, great for after chat discussions.

Refresh: A force display of the most recent comments. This is a web based chat so your display will refresh automatically every few seconds.

Help: Staff will see moderator help and students will see basic help items.

Close: To exit the chat and remove your username from the list of active users.

Related links
About chat
In the classroom
Chatiquette
Useful links

1. In your chat select Print (next to Options in the top right menu).
2. This will open a separate page showing current messages. Make sure you change the View Filter to suit your needs.
   
3. Print or save for later publication via your web browser.
4. To save select File > Save as. Select the down arrow in the 'Save as type' field and select Web Archive, single file (*.mht), this file type will ensure that your images are also saved along with your chat log.

1. Go to www.learningplace.eq.edu.au and select Communication.
2. Select Log on at the bottom of the left side menu. Enter your Learning Place username and password.
3. Select Create a chat and complete the online form to create a new chat room.
4. Select the chat room title to enter into the chat room, eg. Open My Space >>
5. Select Options from the top right corner of the screen.
6. Scroll down to Comic chat specific settings and enable Comic chat.
   
7. You will also notice a large Character bank of Avatars. Tick the banks you wish to include in your chat.
   Note: To make inclusion of characters into chat rooms easier, and to make management of characters easier, the avatars are organised into special categories called "Banks".
8. Select Update. The Comic Chat icon will be highlighted.
9. Select the green icon to choose a different character.

1. Select Communication from the top navigation under the banner.
2. Select Create a forum or select an existing forum through the 'List forums' search page.
3. To create a forum, complete the online form and Submit.
4. When you click on the forum title it will open the forum
5. Select Start a new thread from the right navigation.
   
6. Type your message and include a suitable title. You can add a url or attachment if needed.
7. You can select WYSIWYG options to add formatting by selecting the pencil icon.
   
8. Select Post to add your forum message.

Note: The help icon will provide any further information you require and is based on your role.

Forum menu options

Select these forum options to control how your forum messages are displayed.

You can have new messages emailed to your participants through Options.

Related links:
About forums
Getting started
In the classroom

1. In your forum, select the Options icon.
2. Change the appearance of the messages in the forum by setting the 'Order message by' to By Thread in the drop down menu. This ensures a clear and logical layout when you print the forum.
3. Select Submit.
4. Select Expand every message icon.
5. Print via your web browser (File > Print).

Topic and reply mode

Topic and relpy mode allows your forum to be presented in a more tabular layout, rather than in the current threaded (Treeview) mode.

When creating a new Forum activity, a new option will appear to enable Topic and Reply mode for the forum.

Main changes are:

• The icons/buttons have changed. This can be changed in the Forum Options screen and can be applied to existing Treeview mode forums as well.
• The right-hand menu (that appears in the Treeview mode) has been removed from the Topic and Reply mode for space reasons and also because some of those options are no longer relevant.
• The Topic and Reply mode is fully compatible with the Treeview mode forums. You can still make replies to sub-threads and the threaded data will be saved properly in case you switch back to the Treeview mode.
• There is a 'breadcrumb' trail across the top of the forum representing the users location. They can select these items to return to the 'parent' thread or the top level.
  

New look 'Forum Options' screen

The main change here is the options screen has had significant layout work to make it easier to read. There are two new options to choose from in the Forum Options screen:

1. A new icon/button style from the Icon style drop-down list (can be applied to existing Treeview mode forums as well).
2. A new layout style from the Forum style drop-down list.

Summary mode

There is an option to turn on 'Summary' mode in the Forum Options screen (see image above in Advanced Settings). The Summary mode lists all top level threads with the most recent entries appearing at the top, useful for creating a log of all existing messages in a forum.

1. From the Learning Place homepage, select the main heading Communication.
2. Select Log on at the bottom of the left side menu.
3. Select Log on at the bottom of the left side menu.
4. Select Create a blog or select an existing chat through the 'List forums' search page.
5. To create a blog, complete the online form and Submit.
6. When you click on the blog title it will open the blog.
7. Select Create new entry from the right Actions menu.
8. You can choose to use an HTML editor by ticking the box. This will give you formatting tools similar to Word as well as the ability to add hyperlinks and images.
9. Type your message and select Save.

Note: The help option in the Actions menu will provide any further information you require and is based on your role.

Related links:
About blogs

Enter into each blog to save or print.

1. In your blog select Save to file and follow the prompts.
2. Delete unnecessary posts and details before you publish.

By default, blogs are moderated. This means all entries have to be approved by the person who set up the blog (the moderator).

To change this option

1. Inside the blog, select Edit owner options.
2. To allow users to publish entries without approval, change Moderate to NO and Save.

When you first enter a blog it will show the entries for that day only. Sometimes, people wrongly think that all the entries are showing.

Simply select the day, View by month or View entire blog in the Calendar.

The Favourite Blogs menu lists the user's favourite blogs and will always display when logged into any Learning Place blog. You can use the list to jump from one blog to another and keep track of new comments and entries that have just been added.


For example, (6/14) indicates the 'News reports' blog contains 6 new entries and 14 new comments.

To add a blog to your favourites:

• Go to each of your blogs and select the Add to favourites option in the Actions box.
  
• The Favourites Blogs box will then display, listing the blog you have added.
• Select the blog you wish to view, then select the New entries or New comments option in the Action box to view the new postings.

Project rooms are virtual spaces that contain multiple activities – chat rooms, blogs, forums, polls and a more information page. They are excellent for communication activities involving students, online guests or educational networks.

As project rooms have a specific url they can be easily located.

Project rooms are useful for projects that cover a range of topics over a period of time.

Students can participate in project rooms set up by teachers. Student logins can be Learning Place usernames or generic logins generated by the teacher. Generic logins are associated only with that project room. When a project room is deleted so are the associated generic logins (not Learning Place logins - they are ongoing).

1. Select Communication from the top navigation.
2. Select Log on at the bottom of the left side menu.
3. Enter your Learning Place username and password. If you are not a member, select join the Learning Place. You will need your EQ employee number.
4. Select Create a project.
5. Enter the details of your project and select Submit.
6. Select Open [project name].
7. You will now need to create your activities within this project room and you will see the following message:

8. Select the link Click here.
9. From the drop down menu select one of the communication activities eg. blog, chat, forum. Complete the Title and Description fields and select Create.

This action will generate a project room, display it in the project area and provide you with a project admin link when you log on to the project. You can use the project admin link to change the details of your project.

If your students have Learning Place usernames, simply make your project room open to EQ students when you create the room.

If your students aren’t Learning Place members then you can create Generic usernames. These logins will only work in the Project room in which you created them. Generics can also be used for special guests.

In the Create a Project room form, type in the number of users you require and follow the screen prompts after you submit.

Note: When you create Generic users you must select Non EQ Adults and Non EQ students.

Tips

• You can change the generic names and passwords. Select the Update button to confirm the changes.
• You cannot change the user Id.
• You can note their location which is helpful for large collaborative projects.
• When the project room is deleted, so are the generic usernames.

If your project is locked (for privacy) you might like to pre-select Learning Place users from our database. You can search for their names in the Project Admin area.

Related links
How to register students into the Learning Place
How to make a project room [an error occurred while processing this directive]

The Communication area has a My admin section where you can manage all your past and current projects.

To access My Admin, you need to log on first. The Log on can be found in the left side navigation at the bottom. You need to be a Learning Place member (EQ or Affiliate staff).

1. After you have logged on using your Learning Place username and password, you will notice the My Admin option appear.
2. Select My Admin, this will take you to a special area that records all your communications.
3. The red text indicates communications in the past. You can resurrect these archived communications by selecting Edit and changing the start and finish dates.
4. You can control the Membership (who can access your projects, activities, polls and more information pages) from the Actions.
5. Once you have deleted a communication it is removed from the system.

Another quick way to manage individual project rooms is to go into the Admin option within a Project room. You will find this within the Project area.

If you can not find your project room by searching for the title, the date may have expired.

1. Go to the Communication area.
2. Select the Logon button in the bottom left navigation.
3. Select the My Admin option above the Log off button.
4. Archived projects will be shown in red. Select the edit option on the project you want to restore.
5. Select Change room details – change the 'Active from' and 'Active until' options using the calendar icon.
6. Select a valid date and Submit.

Each project room has a unique URL (website address).

1. Locate your project room via List projects and search alphabetically or by the Moderator's surname.
2. Select the project room title to open the room.
3. Enter your Learning Place username and password.
4. Select the More info link.
5. Select the Back icon to enter the Project admin area.
6. The unique URL is located at the bottom of the Project admin page.

Alternatively

1. Log on (bottom left navigation) and enter your Learning Place username and password.
2. Select My admin, this takes you to all of the project rooms you have created.
3. Select Edit to enter the Project admin area.
4. The unique URL is located at the bottom of the Project admin page.

It is a fairly long address so we suggest you embed it as a hyperlink in an email or on a web page for your students and guests. You could also save it as a Favourite in your web browser.

You can use your own banner to personalize your project room. To do this you need to Edit your project room Layout by adding a Custom image as your project banner.

You will need to have prepared an image to be used as your banner. It is suggested that the banner has the following specifications; Max height 90 pixels, Max width 800 pixels.

TIP: optimize the image to create a small JPEG file (jpg).

Process

1. Log in to your project room and select Project Admin.
2. Select Layout, then Project Banner.
3. Click in the radio button for Custom Image.
   
4. Select the yellow folder next to the banner image blank text field. This will open a new window displaying your personal online image bank.
   
5. Select Upload a new file then Browse…
   
6. Locate your banner image on your computer and choose Select. Your image will upload into your online image bank.
7. When your image is displayed choose Select. The file path for your image will now appear in the Banner image text field.
8. Select the Image alignment radio button that relates to where you want the banner positioned.
9. You can also select a Background colour for the banner. For a professional look you can make this the exact same colour as a colour in the Banner itself. Do this by choosing the colour from the colour picker provided. Alternatively, if you know the hexadecimal colour value you want simply type this in the Background banner text field, eg. #996633
10. Select Submit to save changes. Update is successful text should appear for several seconds.
    

Customising your project room’s left menu can personalise this space and provide a more meaningful menu structure. You can change the format of the text or even upload your own buttons.

• Link directly to the activities within your room.
• Link to other project rooms (that belong to your school or a cluster, region or state wide project consisting of multiple project rooms).
• Link to external web pages or resources.

Process

1. Log on to your project room and select Project Admin.
2. Select Layout and Customise Menu.
3. From Navigation Type select Custom from the drop down menu.
4. In the text field create a title for the project room to which you want to link.
5. Highlight the title of the room.
   
6. Select the Link to another page icon in the WYSIWYG editor. Holding your mouse over each of the icons will provide an explanation of each tool.
   
7. A pop-up window will appear.
   In the Item drop down menu, select the name of the project room you are linking to.
   
   or
   Add a URL to link to a web page.
   
8. Select Save. The pop-up window should now disappear.
9. Select Submit to save the changes. Update is successful text should appear for several seconds.
10. Select the Reset to default actions button to start again.

The 'how to' sheets are available to help staff and students to use the Learning Place. They can be used as single-copy resources to help with preparation or can be used as handouts for sessions on different aspects of the Learning Place.

1. How to chat 80k
2. Chat commands 81k
3. Chat strategies that work 103k by Carolyn Keighley
4. Character specifications for Comic Chat 151k
5. How to use forums 138k
6. How to create a project room 136k
7. How to create a blog project room 98k
8. How to create a new blog entry 82k
9. How to post a comment in your blog 81k

We have also created video tutorials to help you learn how to set up your project rooms.

1.   How to set up a project room
2.   How to add a podcast activity
3.   How to add a project room banner