Creating and connecting to Scootle Learning Paths
About “Learning Paths”
A Scootle ‘Learning path’ is a collection of Scootle content items (such as learning objects) that you group together to create a resource that supports your teaching. A learning path’s content (e.g. learning objects) can be interwoven with teacher comments to give instructions to students and the descriptions of the content can be edited. Creating a learning path is a quick and easy way to make resources in Scootle easily available to your students.
Learning paths keep the Scootle content organised so it is easy for you to return to without searching for it again … a bit like bookmarking good websites in your browser Favorites list.
You can create many learning paths in Scootle and they can be kept private for your own use, or shared with students and/or other teachers in your school.
Each learning path has a unique PIN and URL which students can use to access the path. The URL can be linked directly to a class SharePoint site or added to a learning management system, so students can access the learning path directly with one click of the mouse.
Finding your learning paths in Scootle
Log in to Scootle and click on the Learning Paths link on the Home page.
The learning path information page will be displayed and the first 5 folders of your learning paths are listed on the left of the page under the heading ‘My Learning paths’. Click on the heading link to go to the full list of your learning paths.
Create some folders
Initially, you won’t have any learning paths, so a good first step is to create some folders to organise them. Several folders can be created at one time.
Depending on your teaching context, you might create a folder for each learning area you teach or maybe for different year levels.
Click the blue ‘Create new folder’ button
Give your folder a meaningful name and click on the green ‘Save’ button.
Handy tip: if you just press ‘Enter’ after naming the folder, it will not be created … you must click on the ‘Save’ button.
Creating a learning path
Search for relevant content in Scootle and explore the results lists to ensure the content meets the needs of your students.
When you have some content that you want to save to a learning path, click on the ‘Back to search results’ link at the top left of the page.
Click next to the resources that you want to add to your learning path so a tick appears next to them.
When you have identified all the content you want in your learning path, click on the green button on the right to add the items to a learning path.
A new window opens up for you to choose the folder that your learning path should be placed into. The folders you have already created to organise your learning paths are listed under the arrow on the right.
If you already have a learning path created that you want to add to, choose the ‘Add to existing learning path’ option and you will be shown all the existing learning paths to choose the appropriate one, as shown at left.
Otherwise, create a name for your new learning path that reflects the content e.g. ‘simplifying fractions’ or ‘Counting’ or ‘digital books’.
Your computer may pause for a few moments while it creates or updates the learning path … be patient and let it do it’s thing without clicking on anything!
When you see the red text appear, you will know the learning path has been created and you are in edit mode, so you can refine it if needed, as shown over the page.
Linking to a learning path
Each learning path has a unique URL that can be shared with students or other teachers to allow them direct access to your learning path. It is shown at the top of the page (as highlighted below).
It can be shared in an email with other teachers/students at the school, added as a link to the class SharePoint page or learning management system.
Note: For copyright reasons, links to learning paths should never be shared outside the school on a public web site or emailed to anyone outside the education system.
Editing a learning path
To find an existing learning path to link to it or edit it, click ‘Learning paths’ link and then the link to ‘My learning path folders’.
Select the folder that contains the learning path you want to edit.
Find the learning path in the folder and select the ‘Edit’ option. This is where the URL Is displayed for linking to the learning path.
Resources in your learning path can be deleted, the description edited to add your own instructions, information or questions, and the order of resources on a learning path can be changed by clicking on the grey ‘header’ area of the object and dragging up or down.
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