Articles in this section

How do I create a course?

Mark Stolan
  • Updated
Follow

Echo allows you to create course in three ways:

  1. New Courses From Scratch
     
  2. Static Copies of Existing Courses
     
  3. Derivative Copies of Existing Courses

 

Creating a New Course

To create a new course:

From the teacher homepage, click the manage courses tool located in the top tool bar.

 

Click create course.

Note: If this option doesn't exist, you may not have the correct permissions, or you may need to switch to the teacher app. If the teacher app is not available to you, reach out to your Echo Administrator for support.

 

In the create course window:

  1. Select create new.
  2. Select to use an existing course template or select blank to create a brand new course with no predefined settings.
  3. Select next.

 

  1. Give the course a title. Consider adding in the school year to make your course easily identifiable.
  2. Select teacher-owner as your role.
  3. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on

Note: The teacher role cannot enroll students and the owner role cannot enter grades. The teacher-owner role gives the teacher all the permissions needed to manage the course.

 

  1. Select range as your course type.
  2. Select the current school year.
  3. Select a start and end date for your course.
  4. Click back to adjust previous settings, or create if your settings are complete.

Note: Range allows you to give the course a start and end date which allows you to set due dates. Making a course continuous is meant for self-paced learning, like an online class, and does not allow you to set due dates.

 

 

Creating a Static Copy of An Existing Course

When creating a static copy of an existing course, the new course is independent of the original course. Any changes made to the original course will not affect the copied course. Any changes made to the copied course will not affect the original.

Create a static copy of a base course when starting a new term that will re-use all the previously created content within a course.

To create a new static copy of an existing course:

From the teacher homepage, click the manage courses tool located in the top tool bar.

 

Click create course.

 

In the create course window:

  1. Select copy from your domain.
  2. Find the original course that you would like to make a copy of, by entering the title or course ID.
  3. Click next.

 

  1. Select no updates (static copy).
  2. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on.

 

  1. Give the course a title. Consider adding in the school year to make your course easily identifiable.
  2. Select teacher-owner as your role.
  3. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on.

 

  1. Select range as your course type.
  2. Select the current school year.
  3. Select a start and end date for your course.
  4. Select adjust due, visibility and grade released based on course start date.
  5. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on.

 

  1. Align your course to the school defined grading periods.
  2. Click back to adjust previous settings, or create if your settings are complete.

 

 

Creating a Derivative of an Existing Course

When creating a derivative copy of an existing course, the new course is connected to the original (base) course. Any changes made to the original (base) course will roll down to the derivative copy(ies). Changes made to the derivative copy, however, will not affect the original (base).

You might use a base and derivative course arrangement if you teach multiple sections of the same subject in a day, or if you are an elementary teacher who will be collaborating with other teachers in the same grade level.  

  • Changing the settings in the derivative will break the connection between the base and derivative.
  • A derivative copy cannot be made of a course that has students enrolled. An Echo Administrator would have to delete the students before a derivative copy could be made.

 

To get started with creating derivatives, you first must have a base course already created.

Then, from the teacher homepage, click the manage courses tool located in the top tool bar.

 

Click create course.

 

In the create course window:

  1. Select copy from your domain.
  2. Find the original course that you would like to make a copy of, by entering the title or course ID.
  3. Click next.

 

  1. Select updates (derivative child copy).
  2. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on.

 

  1. Give the derivative course a title. Make it different from the Base by adding something like, "period 1" or "section 1". Consider adding in the school year to make your course easily identifiable.
  2. Select teacher-owner as your role.
  3. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on.

 

  1. Select range as your course type.
  2. Select the current school year.
  3. Select a start and end date for your course.
  4. Click the checkbox to uncheck adjust due, visibility and grade released based on course start date.
  5. Click back to adjust previous settings, or next to move on.

Echo by default will have the  box for checked for step 4 when creating a new course.  Be sure to uncheck this box when creating a derivative to ensure assignment due dates in the derivative course automatically align to the base course

 

  1. Align your course to the school defined grading periods.
  2. Click back to adjust previous settings, or create if your settings are complete.

 

Once created, base and derivatives will nest, and look like the image below.

 

Additional articles

 

 

 

Echo is constantly being improved based on the feedback from users and we strive to keep our documentation up to date.  If this document doesn’t match what you are seeing in Echo, please let us know.

 

 

 

 

Related articles

Comments

0 comments

Please sign in to leave a comment.