Using Stellar 1.3 Overview, Calendar, Materials, and Homework

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Using Stellar 1.3Overview, Calendar, Materials,
and Homework

• Michael Barker
• 8/200

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Stellar Materials Overview, Calendar, Materials,
and Homework

• Provide a way to put materials (MS Word
  documents, PDF, text, almost any file you can
  make) on the web
• Provide organizational tools (Overview, Calendar,
  Materials/Homework)
• Allow full text searching of text, HTML, and PDF
  documents (plus some of the descriptive
  materials, such as the Summary)
• Allow students to easily read the documents
  whenever and wherever they want

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Key Concepts

• Overview is a Table of Contents list of all the
  materials
• Calendar is a Date-Ordered list of all the
  materials you indicated should be dated
• Materials and Homework are selected lists just
  like the Overview
• Every document is listed in at least two, and
  usually three of these pages (Overview, either
  Materials or Homework, and usually Calendar)

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Overview 1

• This is the initial Overview Page. The first
  thing to do is set up your topics.

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Topics

• Topics are the "labels" on your virtual file
  folders. They provide categories for you to put
  materials in. For example, perhaps several of
  your materials (lecture notes, readings,
  assignments) are concerned with a single common
  theme or idea. That would make a good topic for
  organizing those materials.

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Topics (2)

• You don't have to come up with all your topics to
  start. You can add, rename, and move them around
  over time.
• Think about what kind of organization will help
  the students. Stellar will provide a
  date-ordered list (the Calendar). Is there
  another grouping of the materials that will help?

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Adding a Topic Select "new topic"
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Adding a Topic Type in the label and press
submit
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Adding a Topic The result!
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Adding Documents

• Now that we have the "file folder" labeled, we
  need to put the documents in it.
• There are four kinds of documents
• A file on your local computer (MS Word, etc.)
• A URL pointing to something on the web
• Plain text (typed or copy-and-paste)
• HTML (typed or copy-and-paste)
• Most of the time, you'll probably put a copy of
  the document (a file) in Stellar for the students
  to read or even to save and work on themselves.

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Add Document Select "add document"
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Add Document the form

• Title
• Summary
• File or URL orHTML or Text
• Type
• Hide/Show
• Date

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Type?

• The types available in Stellar 1.3 are
• Readings
• Lectures Note
• Assignment
• Solution
• Video
• Help
• Other

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Add Document (Browse a file)
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Add Document Filled In
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Add Document The Result!
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What about those other pages?

• Remember that when you add a document to the
  Overview, Calendar, or Materials/Homework pages,
  it is automatically listed in the other pages.
• Let's look at the Calendar, Materials, and
  Homework pages!

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Calendar View
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Calendar View

• Each entry in the Calendar View is a separate
  piece of material.
• If you want to list assignments, exams, etc.,
  just "Add Document" and type in a short note in
  the HTML/text entry window.

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Materials View
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Materials or More Specific Pages

• Materials groups lecture notes, readings, videos,
  and other materials
• If desired, the Stellar Administrators can
  provide separate listings for lecture notes,
  readings, videos, and other.
• We can also remove the Materials page, leaving
  only the Overview page.
• We can also rename the Materials page. It will
  still have the same format, but the Navigation
  Label can be changed.

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Homework View
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Homework or more specific pages

• Homework groups assignments and solutions
  materials
• If desired, the Stellar administrators can
  provide separate listings for assignments and
  solutions
• We can also remove the Homework page, leaving
  only the Overview page
• We can also rename the Homework page. It will
  still have the same format, but the Navigation
  Label can be changed.

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Edit Document
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Edit Document Form

• Edit Document is like Add Document
• One Addition the Document Type (MS Word, etc.)
  Don't use unless you need it!

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Document Type

• Some Mac OS 9 users who do not use file
  extensions put their materials into Stellar, and
  then see that they are "text" and they don't show
  up right.
• When this happens, they can either use file
  extensions (e.g. .doc for MS Word, etc.) OR use
  the Document Type to explicitly set the correct
  type.

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Edit Document (oops!)

• It looks as if there's a file, a URL, and HTML!

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Edit Document Error

• If you put a file AND a URL AND HTML in, this is
  the error you will see.
• Press "back" on your browser and remove the extra
  entry

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Either File, URL, HTML, or Text

• You can browse to a file you have on your
  computer and upload it OR
• You can enter a URL such as http//web.mit.edu/
  to point to materials available on the web or a
  server OR
• You can type (or paste) HTML into the Text Window
  OR
• You can type (or paste) text into the Text Window
  (and select "Plain Text")
• BUT YOU CAN ONLY DO ONE!

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Overview (The Student View)
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Adding A Discussion Link

• One way to use the discussion board is to set up
  a forum (and a discussion topic, if desired),
  then provide a link in the materials that takes
  the students right to the place where they can
  participate in a discussion.
• To do this, first set up the discussion board.
  Go to the right place in the discussion board.
  Copy the URL.
• Then go to the Overview page.
• Select "Add Document" where you want the link to
  be.
• Fill in the form, pasting the URL you saved in

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Add Discussion Link
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Calendar View (wrong date!)
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Calendar View (fixed)
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Overview Listing
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Add HTML

• You can type it in (if you know HTML) or use
  Dreamweaver, then copy and paste.

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HTML isn't HTML?

• Stellar makes sure that the HTML is very "good"
  HTML. So, for example, you may type in
  , but
  Stellar will change that to
  which is
  "better" HTML.
• If you don't put any HTML markings in, it will
  usually convert all your text to a single big
  paragraph.

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Overview With HTML
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The HTML Document
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The HTML Document

• Notice that Stellar "wrapped" it in the Stellar
  Navigation Bar and Look. So HTML pages put in
  this way look as if they are part of the site.
• I didn't include any paragraph markings,
  so it made one big paragraph out of my text.

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HTML Document (with a little more formatting)
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Add Text

• Just type (or copy-and-paste) the text into the
  text window
• Click on the "make this a plain text document" box

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Overview with Text document
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Plain Text Document
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Plain Text Document

• Stellar does not add anything to the plain text
  document, to allow it the widest window possible.

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Materials Summary

• Use the Overview page to set up "virtual file
  folders" (aka topics), then put your subject
  materials in the folders using "Add Document"
• You can put files, URLs, HTML, or plain text in
  the folders.
• You can also see (and use) the Date-ordered
  listing (Calendar) and the Selected listings
  (Materials and Homework)

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The Overview Page