My Corner (Your Home That You See on Login.)

CornerNet: Exploring the SECPSD Intranet

Overview

Welcome to the SECPSD Intranet. An intranet is a network that is internal to an organization, in this case the South East Cornerstone School Division #209. This intranet (CornerNet) will allow teachers to share with students and classes, collaborate with each other, and access useful and necessary information, all without requiring multiple logins. It will become the hub of a teacher’s online presence, with links to email, calendars and resources. In essence, it is a series of web sites, one for each school, class, teacher, and group in the school division, all connected into one large network.

Navigation

There are two main navigation tools when using the intranet. The first is the white main site bar, with the SECPSD logo on the left. This will tell you which main, or top-level, site you are in. The text beside the logo will change to show if you are in a Class or Group that is part of that site. While they will be discussed in detail below, the sections of the top-level sites, and some of their sub-sections, are:

My Corner (Your “Home” that you see on login.)

· Contains links to any classes and groups in which you have membership.

· Holds any documents you have uploaded, which can be public or private.

· Is the home of your blog.

· Has a link to your home (H:) drive.

· Contains your online profile. (Information about you that others can see.)

Division (Provides access to division resources)

· Announcements

· Schools

· Division Supports (Student Services, Curriculum and Instruction, etc.)

· Forms

· Job Postings

· School Community Councils

· Etc.

School (Links staff and students to their school site, staff not assigned to a school will see a list of all schools)

· Classes

· Extra-curricular

· Staff

· SCC

Department (Links Division staff to their department, staff and students will not see this link)

· Differentiated for each department.

Search (Perhaps the most useful feature of the web site.)

· Find any person, document, blog post, or page on the entire group of sites.

The second navigation tool is the in-site green bar below the white one, which will tell you which section of a site you are in. This bar will change, depending on which site you are curently seeing. Below is what this bar looks like on your My Corner page.

Sites in Detail

My Corner (Hub)

This is the site that many people will go to first when logging in. It will show all announcements from all classes and groups you are engaged in, as well as have links to your home (H:) drive and any document you have uploaded. For this reason, it is referred to as the hub. Think of it as My Cornerstone. The tabs that are visible on this page are as follows:

Home

This is you “landing page,” where you first arrive on logging in. It will show you three columns.

The first is your Newsfeed, where anything posted by you or others on your Note Board will appear, as well as the Note Board posts and statuses of all your connections. This is very similar to the feed you may have on Facebook. The box at the top will show your “status.”

The middle column is your Note Board, analogous to your Wall on Facebook. You or any member of CornerNet can post here. That means students as well as staff. All such posts will appear in your Newsfeed, as well as the Newsfeed of all your connections, so impress on all users to keep it appropriate for the classroom.

The right-hand column contains your Announcements at the top, which will be gathered from all your classes, groups, and sites. The duration for which they show is determined by the person who posted the announcement. The My Connections section, below, contains links to the My Corner profile for any staff or students that you add. Essentially, this is your analogous to Facebook’s “Friend” list.

Classes and Groups

This contains links to all the classes and groups that the user is a member of. As well, some users will have the ability to create Classes and/or Groups. On the right, as well as Announcements, users will have a list of all Assignments created in all their classes. Classes and Groups will be discussed in detail below.

Documents

The documents section is a place where users can upload documents. Personal Documents are private to the user, but Shared Documents are available to anyone who accesses the network, meaning all staff and students. Keep this in mind when uploading.

To upload, click on “Add Document” for the appropriate section, and browse to the file to be uploaded.

Blog

Every person will have their own blog, to use as they wish. They are a great tool for people to post observations and opinions, and for others to comment on them. Contents of blogs can be searched for, or links to your blog can be shared with others. For more information about blogging, contact your IT consultant.

Home Drive

The Home Drive tab gives a link to the user’s Home (H:) drive. This link will be accessible outside the domain. This means that if students or staff members are working from home, they will be able to access the files stored on their Home drive.

Profile

Users’ profiles contain the information that one wishes to share with staff and students. Many parts of it are editable, allowing personalization. This tab provides a way to access information about students and staff, as well as editing personal information. More importantly, perhaps, this allows access to all of a user’s Shared Documents.

Division (Portal)

The division site provides a wealth of information about all aspects of SouthEast Cornerstone. Many of these should be self-explanatory; the others will be discussed below.

Home

The home page gives Division Announcements, Publications, Quick Links, and events from the Division Calendar.

Schools

All SECPSD schools are linked here.

PD

This tab will give access to resources for Professional Development.

Education

The education tab contains links to many of the departments that teachers will access, Analytics, Curriculum and Instruction, Early Learning, Instructional Technology, Learning Supports and Student Services.

Senior Leadership

This area will be the domain of the various superintendents and directors.

Division Services

This is the connection to departments that conduct the business of the school division, Information Systems, Facilities, Transportation, and Finance.

School

These sites are similar for every school, except that they are “branded” with the colours and logo of each specific school.

Home

The landing page for these sites shows School Announcements, Publications, Quick Links, and the upcoming events on the school calendar.

Classes and Departments

This tab shows links to the classes based on grade, subject, and, if applicable, department.

Extra-curricular

All teams, clubs and committees, and special groups such as Student Leadership Councils and Yearbook can have space on this tab.

How To

This area will provide forums, documents and FAQs on various activities.

School Community Council

This space will be utilized by the local SCCs for each school.

Department

Analogous to the School for classroom teachers, this is tab only shows for division employees outside of schools. The green menu bar may be different for each department, and the one above is a sample only.

Search

While not an actual tab, this button needs mention. This gives the ability to search all sites of CornerNet, plus the public facing web pages of the division. Searches can be done for groups, classes, blog posts, documents, and people. This powerful tool makes it unnecessary to know the location of the information in question, it very quickly finds all possible matches, and provides links to them. Think of it as Google for SECPSD.

Using Classes and Groups

Much of what teachers and will use CornerNet for will involve Classes and Groups. While very similar, there are some differences that will determine which is more suitable for each particular situation. When you click the button to create either a class or a group, you are faced with very similar pop-up windows. The first tab controls what pages will show in the group or class, and the second tab will control who has access to it, and what kind of access that is. Note that teachers will not need to create a Class Site for classes that are currently being offered, the plan is to have a Class Site set up for each of these automatically.

Setup Tab

The setup tab controls which elements will be included in the class or group. The title, of course, is the name of the class or group. Either can have up to four pages, Home, Resources, Discussion Board, and Wiki. The Start Page box at the top will determine which page the user is directed to when clicking the link that opens the class or group. The check boxes under each page name are the elements that can be added to that page of the class or group. These can be also be added later, if needed.

Some notes:

· The difference between “Announcements” and “Special Announcements” is that the former are regular information that needs to be shared, the latter are short-term, important events, such as “Exam Tomorrow” or “Buses Not Running.”

· Featured Stories are pictures, perhaps with accompanying text, shown on the page, that rotate every few seconds.

· Discussion Boards are a way to have open, threaded discussions, where whoever has access can comment on each others posts. A great tool for questions-and-answers.

· Wikis are a space where anyone who has access can post information. They are often a good place to create a repository of information that all to see, and everyone can contribure to, without the hassle of uploading and downloading documents.

Access Tab

The Access tab controls the security of the class or group. Anyone with a SECPSD account can be added manually, by putting their name in the appropriate box. Access can also be granted as a body, allowing, for example, all teachers to have access to the class or group. There are three levels of access:

Readers can see the information on the site, but cannot add or edit.

Students/Contributors can see the information, and add documents, etc. to the site, but cannot edit the site itself.

Teachers/Owners can control the site, add or remove elements, change access, and delete the site.

The Public (Anonymous) checkbox needs some explanation. If this is checked, anyone who has the URL (web address) can access the site as a Reader. The site cannot be searched by search engines, such as Google, but the address could be shared by email, social media, or whatever.

Note that if All Students (for example) is checked any student in the Division, not just those enrolled in the class, can see whatever is posted in the class or group.

Further Information

For more information or training, please contact your IT Consultant.