How To Setup Virtual Classrooms

Congratulations! You've been assigned to teach your first online class. Once the excitement wears off, you'll need to start thinking about how to set up your virtual classroom. This is similar in some ways to preparing your physical classroom for the start of school and quite different in other ways. School districts that sign up to use the IQity Learning Management Suite provide an easy-to-use tool that helps teachers set up a virtual classroom without difficulty.

Welcoming the Class

In a bricks-and-mortar school,you strive to make your classroom welcoming to your students. You might think this is not as important when you set up your virtual classroom, but it's actually more vital to helping students feel connected. In the IQity Learning Management Suite, you'll have your own classroom page that you can personalize with school colors, photos, and motivational messages for your class. Setting up the virtual classroom to resemble a physical school classroom helps send the message to students that this is a place for learning.

Managing the Class

The Classroom Tab is also the place where you'll enter assignments and due dates, post grades that only the individual student and his parents can see, and make class announcements. As the teacher, you'll have access to important information such as how much time each student spends logged in to work on lessons, and you'll be able to use the secure messaging system to communicate individually with students who have questions or need help.

The IQity Learning Management Suite also includes time-saving tools. For example, many assessments can be graded electronically. You'll have an online gradebook where grades are automatically recorded, eliminating the need for you to perform this task.

Connecting with the Class

You may be concerned as you set up your virtual classroom that distance learning makes it more difficult to connect with your students. IQity eliminates that concern by providing a real-time webcasting tool called LiveBoard. Using Liveboard, you can lecture to the class just as if they were assembled in a brick-and-mortar classroom. Liveboard has a built-in electronic whiteboard you can use to make notes or illustrations the class can see. You can also use the electronic whiteboard to facilitate class discussion. Unlike some online whiteboard products that only allow the teacher to write on them, LiveBoard allows every student to participate in the class by writing answers, questions or comments.

Assigning Class Content

Of course, a major task in setting up your virtual classroom is adding course content. IQity makes that easy as well. It comes bundled with a learning object repository called Reactor which includes materials geared to any K-12 subject or grade. Best of all, the materials in Reactor have been vetted by a panel of educators to make certain they are aligned with state standards. You'll find a wide variety of formats, from exercises and virtual labs to practice language conversations, maps and charts, and assessments. Setting up your virtual classroom is simple with IQity because you can just "drag-and-drop" the content you want to use from Reactor into your virtual classroom.

Setting up Your Virtual Classroom is Free

You'll be amazed to learn that you can have access to all the features of the IQity Learning Management Suite at no cost to your school district. To see how IQity can make it fast and easy to set up your virtual classroom, ask for an online demonstration from an IQity e-learning expert.