Private If you are new to Folio, you have the Student Guide available to you. This is an infographic that summarises the key aspects you must be aware of to be able to use Folio.
1.1 The Folio module
a. What is a module?
Whether you are part of the UOC’s teaching staff or the student community, it is important that you know that Folio is activated through a module found on the Virtual Campus.
A module or widget is a small application or program that serves to facilitate access to the most commonly used functions and that, once activated, will be integrated into the campus.
b. What is the Folio module for?
The Folio module on campus will make it easier for you to do three of the most common actions:
- Visit the home page of your Folio.
- Create a new entry.
- Access the desktop to manage your Folio.
c. The first steps for teachers
Folio is a resource also intended for teachers, in which a work model designed to use this tool in the classroom is explained. It is a personal blog for students and members of the UOC based on WordPress. It is linked to the UOC model and collects data from the classrooms in which members are enrolled. Folio was created to publish and share activities in a collaborative learning environment. For this reason, the activities and continuous assessment activities that are submitted with Folio are projects based on the personal evolution of each student.
What does the model allow?
- Identify: Centralize submissions of all courses in a personal space.
- Socialize: Publish the contents in the Agora for colleagues and reinforce communication and the community.
- Professionalize: Have the potential to become a professional portfolio.
- Learn network publishing skills.
- Show the work and evaluate it in an agile way.
→ More information: Indications for affiliated teaching staff
TIPS: Si com a docent estàs interessat a incloure Folio al teu programa et recomanem que comencis llegint aquest breu recurs on s’indiquen les diferents passes per fer la sol·licitud, entendre els diferents usos de Folio i com implementar-lo.
1.2 The Agora
a) What is the Agora?
Those UOC classrooms that work with Folio have an Agora. You will find the following elements:
- Title of the Agora according to the classroom to which it belongs
- Right side with participants in the Agora. The participants are those who have already entered the Agora at some time.
- Central area: latest content published by classmates and classroom teaching staff
The entries shown are those that have been published and tagged with an ActiFolio of the subject, and have a Classroom, Campus or public visibility permit. The Agora shows different elements according to the permissions assigned and who visits the space. For example, it is not displayed if you are not online on Campus or you are not a member of the Classroom.
TIPS: If you are part of the teaching staff and you are interested in using the Agora in your classroom, you have a Manual for teachers with the steps to add the Folio Agora to the classroom.
b) Agora entries
The following elements are shown in the entries published in the Agora:
c) Agora design
The Agora, being part of the classroom, uses a corporate theme and maintains this style over the design that the student has chosen in their own Folio. It also preserves the elements and certain aspects of the original layout, but applies the Agora design, and therefore the appearance of the post may be different from the original Folio publication.
1.3 Proposed activities
a) Activate Folio using a widget
The Folio widget in the Virtual Campus can be activated using 4 steps.
- Enter the Virtual Campus with your username and password.
- On the right you will find a function called Add information that will allow you to introduce some interesting widgets in the Virtual Campus, including Folio.
- Once located you must click on “Add it”.
- Now you can go back to campus and check that the Folio widget has been added automatically. From now on you can access the Folio desktop, create a new entry or manage your Folio with just one click.
b) Visit the Agora of the courses
This activity is designed so that you know the Agora that you have in each classroom that works with Folio. If you look at the right side of the Campus classroom you can find a link: Classroom’s Agora. If you follow the link, and if there is content published by the rest of the students, you will be able to see it, as long as it meets these requirements:
- The content has been labelled with an ActiFolio of the course
- The visibility permit is classroom, campus or public visibility.
This is a personal work space for a student of the Open University of Catalonia. Any content published in this space is the responsibility of its author.