Now that we're well into the school year, we've found that many new (and veteran) Echo users could use a few helpful reminders on how to keep their Echo courses organized and their to do list manageable. Our platform team has collected some helpful tips and supporting Echo Help desk articles all into one place. Be sure to share these tips with some colleagues that may benefit from these reminders!
Tip #1 - Use folders to organize project content.
Keeping your Echo course manageable will help both you and your students navigate effectively. Some things you might consider trying include:
- Making sure all course content is within the correct project folder
- Using sub folders to organize within a project (for example launch, benchmark 1, benchmark 2, final product).
- Creating a “Completed Projects” folder within your course to hold older projects and keep the focus of your Echo course on the current project.
To learn more, see How do I keep my content organized?
Tip # 2 - Use item templates for frequently used activities.
Do you find that you are having to constantly create and duplicate the same type of assignment (for example a bell opener or an exit ticket)?
You can create an activity template that will save settings such as instructions, submission drop box turned on, points possible entered, etc and allow you to quickly add them to your course.
To learn more, see How do I create and use activity templates?
Tip #3 - Create enhanced agendas.
Now that you have gotten the hang of creating an agenda every day, it’s time to start maximizing their potential. Some things you might want to consider integrating into your practice include:
- Using an agenda template to create consistency for ease of navigation
- Consider teaming up with colleagues to have consistent agenda formats across the school
- Linking content within the agenda to help students find what they need
The possibilities are endless! Start taking your agendas to the next level today!
To learn more, see How do I create agendas for my students? and How do I add a link to my agenda?
Tip #4 - Have you Tried Batch Update?
Has your to-do list gotten out of control? Are there a bunch of students who have earned full credit and you want to score them all at the same time?
The batch update tool will help save you time scoring assignments quickly. There are options to quickly grade all students, or only submit scores for students based on who’s submitted (or who hasn’t).
To learn more, see How do I use the activity grader? (Bulk Update Scores).
Tip #5 - Have the students tell you how it’s going.
Echo gives students the ability to let their teacher know how they are feeling about the course with the course heartbeat tool.
Students can individually rate how the course is going for them and all those ratings can be seen by the teacher on the people page. You can then quickly identify both trends in the class and students that may need additional support to be successful.
To learn more, see What is the course heartbeat tool and how do I access this feature for my students?
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.
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