Quick Reference for InterLearn Authors

InterLearn provides students and teachers with an engaging, collaborative online learning environment. It enables students participating in an online learning environment to experience the interaction and collaboration with peers and teachers that is often attributed to a face-to-face, small group or tutorial environment. InterLearn can be used to present an entire unit of study, or it can be integrated with face-to-face interactions, print based materials, and/or other online environments.

The InterLearn Administration Interface allows staff with an internet connection to create and edit materials at any time and from any location. A basic understanding of HTML is needed and a helpful reference is provided to this end.

InterLearn is based on a database and is hierarchically structured with activities within sections within modules. Each InterLearn environment must have at least one module, which must have at least one section, which may have one or more activities.

Two types of InterLearn activities are available. Firstly, the textbox type activity provides the ability to save responses for later viewing and editing. Secondly, the feedback box type activity builds on the textbox type activity by also allowing the response to be posted to a newsgroup.

InterLearn currently caters for short (less than 4000 characters), textual responses, without any special formatting (bold, italics, etc) or presentation (tables, bullet lists, etc) in a web-based environment. This environment means that students can access their work from any internet connection, without having to carry around floppy disks etc, at any time convenient to them. However this environment is also vulnerable to Internet problems so students are recommended to back up their work until it has been safely submitted.

Activities can be shared, will means that responses will be able to be viewed by all other participants in the respondents group, or individual, where the response can only be viewed by the person who created it. Activities may be assessable or not. Staff can mark assessable activities online and provide students with feedback and a mark online also.

A list of all participants in a group, or in the entire unit where groups are not used, is given. This list can be used to directly email any other participant at any time. InterLearn enables you to include a news forum that can be used to inform students or pertinent information, such as assessment changes or the availability of a new resource. Similarly, a discussion forum can also be included in your InterLearn environment. A discussion forum is another means by which the students can communicate with one another and with the teaching staff to reach a shared understanding of the concepts under discussion. Either can be added from the Manage Teaching Commitments section of the portal.

To start working on the InterLearn environment for your unit go to http://my.monash.edu.au/interactive/manage_subject/, ensure you have editing access to the unit and click on the "Manage InterLearn" link. Complete instructions are available there.