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CHOOSING A COURSE From The COURSE CATALOG To view the individual topics included in any given course refer to the course outlines using the Course Descriptions Button. Every line of the catalog is a URL to that course's objectives. Estimated times of completion are also included on the outline. SIGNING ON Courses can be taken by choosing the Classrooms button. Your Training Administrator will provide your USER ID and Password. After signing on, a student will see a list of available courses. Select a course by clicking once. PRE-TEST Save time by taking a pre-course test before you take the course. The results of the test will let you know what parts of the course you need to take. A post-course test is also available. You'll know how well you've mastered the material once you've completed this test. This will involve up to 30 multiple choice, text entry, matching or interactive simulation type questions selected at random from the various units in the course. The only feedback given will be whether the question was answered correctly or not. Once the pre-test is completed, a summary of scores by unit is displayed. A student can hot link from the scores page to any unit where a mastery level was not achieved. To skip the pre-test, select BEGIN THE COURSE. COURSE UNIT QUIZZES True/false, matching, and fill-in-the-blank questions are liberally included throughout the courses engaging you in the learning process. EXERCISES & SUPPLIED FILES Gain valuable hands-on experience. You'll work in the actual software application with these exercises. Many of the courses contain supplied files that a student can use to enhance learning through practice in the live application. These application files are accessed from the NAVIGATE button in the courses. Exercises can be printed individually or all at once by following the onscreen instructions within the course, or access them any time by clicking NAVIGATE, then ABOUT THIS COURSE, then select the PRINTING EXERCISES OR COPYING SUPPLIED FILES link and follow the instructions. Our coding courses contain sample files that you can actually cut and paste into a compiler. You'll be able to practice with these files and save time by using them in a program of your own. SIMULATIONS Throughout the courses there are multi-step simulations called DO ITS to give students an opportunity to practice what they have learned. In the simulations, help is available by clicking the HINT button. The STEPS button provides an overview of all the steps in that simulation. A student can repeat the DO ITS and try to complete it without the hints and steps by clicking TRY AGAIN at the conclusion of a simulation. Yet another way to gain the hands-on experience you're looking for is through the use of our unique task-based simulations. It may seem like you're in the application, but you'll be safe within the bounds of the course. The free and widely used Shockwave plug-in will enable you to run these optional simulations.GLOSSARY There is a glossary for reference to define unfamiliar technical terms. Click on the NAVIGATE button then GLOSSARY to access this feature. (The glossary is not available in the mainframe courses). GLOBAL BOOKMARK To mark their place, a student leaves the course using the EXIT button on the navigate bar. This Global Bookmaking feature remembers where a student was in the course. The next time the student logs on and selects that course, they return to where they left off. If the student is jumping into the course for quick reference only, and does not want to bookmark, they can leave the course by either closing the course by shutting down their browser, or using their browser to move to another URL. MASTER TOPICS & INDEX Also found from NAVIGATE, this feature allows students to find a topic of interest regardless of which course it is in. Select the course of interest from the top half of the Master Topics window. The Topics and Index for that course will appear in the lower window. Select any topic to hyperlink to where that topic is discussed. There is also a Find feature. CONTINUING EDUCATION UNITS Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are a nationally recognized measure of completion of non-credit professional development learning activities by an approved provider. If you are interested in obtaining Continuing Education Units (CEU's) for mastery of the course, choose NAVIGATE, then choose CONTINUING EDUCATION UNITS. The next screen will provide the information about this program. Don't forget to send in the completed COURSE EVALUATION, your SCORES page and the necessary fees along with the application.TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE USE Take it slow: Each screen has important information. Take your time and read carefully Just In Time: Web-based-training is ready when you are! Take the Quizzes: Taking the occasional quiz is important to make sure you learned the information. Everything after a quiz assumes you know it Ready Reference: Use Web-based-training as a valuable reference source. The index and table of Contents features allow you to look up what you need, anytime. Focus on What You Need: Take the Skill Assessments. Find out where you actually have to start learning a course. Don't waste your time. Skip what you already know or don't need to learn. Take what you need repeatedly. Available 24 hrs/day 7 days/week PRINTING CERTIFICATES Once a student has mastered every section in the course by reaching the mastery percentage on either the course questions or the Skill Assessment, a CERTIFICATE button appears in the lower left corner of the Scores screen. Students can print their own Certificate of Completion.VIEWING SCORES While a student is taking the course, the system is tracking their scores on the questions. To view these scores a student selects SCORES on the NAVIGATE menu. This displays scores by unit. If the student has completed one or more Skills Assessments, it will also show the test scores. There are hyperlinks directly from the scores screen to any section in the course.TAKING NOTES While in a course you are able to highlight on-screen text or programming code. Use {CTRL-C} to copy to the Windows clipboard, go to your favorite word processor and use {CTRL-V} to paste this information into a blank document. This document can be used to create reference notes about the courses without having to retype any information. You can jump between the course and your notes using {ALT-TAB}.POST-TEST At any time during the taking of the course, you can choose to take a Skill Assessment. If you took the Skill Assessment before you started the course, this second test is considered a "Post – Test". As with the pre-test, it involves up to 30 multiple choice, text entry, matching or interactive, simulation questions selected at random from the units in the course. The only feedback you will receive will be whether the question was answered correctly. Once you have completed the post-test you will see a summary of your scores by unit. You can then return to those areas to improve your performance. The system will track your first attempt and your best attempt.MINIMIZE SCROLLING Maximizing available screen work area can minimize scrolling. Remove the "Location Line" and other tool bars by choosing not to display them. This will almost entirely eliminate any need to scroll down to see the lower part of the screen in the course. This can be done using the browser's View menu, and can easily be reversed when a student is finished with the course for that day. CLICK TO NAVIGATE TO IMPORTANT INFORMATION
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