Distance Learning Log Setup

This document is for the administrative set up of SchoolWise distance attendance accounting.  This process requires a moderate to advanced level of computer literacy and administrative access to both SchoolWise Desktop (Windows) and SchoolWise Web.  If your district does not use the web system you may enter attendance in the desktop but you will not have the teacher interface.

Calendar Day Type Set Up
In SchoolWise Desktop the school calendar has two new day types: Distance Learning and Mixed Learning in addition to the traditional day types of Regular Day, Holiday, Staff Day, Vacation, etc. Day types can be changed in SchoolWise from the File Menu - District Setup - School Calendar Setup as seen below:

Most likely your calendar is set to Mixed Learning by default but unless students are physically attending school on site, Distance Learning is the preferred day type because the interface is much simpler for the teachers to navigate.

If you need to change many day types in bulk please click on the Bulk Change Day Type button in the top right hand corner and choose the date you wish to start from. It will auto fill all the school days from the point until the last day of school. Once all of your day types have been set push the Save button. 

You can change the day types in the future if/when students come back to campus.

How to Setup the Learning Log System

In SchoolWise Web we have imported a standards based Distance Learning Weekly skill set.  You may or may not be familiar with Standards based grading and Skill Sets.  We are borrowing the functionality of Skill Sets (Academic Standards) and utilizing them for tracking types of learn on days of the week. 

1. To see this skill set click on the Administration menu and then Manage Skill Sets.   

2. Click on the Distance Learning Weekly skill set. 

3. The following opens up: 

These skills need to be mapped to some of your courses.  There is nothing to change here but we are demonstrating it as a point of reference.  In elementary schools you might map the skills to the homeroom class unless it already has other skills associated with it.  In that case you would have to create a new course perhaps named “Learning Log” and then create sections for every teacher.   Middle and High Schools may need to associate a learning log with every academic course.

4. Close the skill set

To turn on the standards based gradebook for a particular course proceed as follows:

1. Go to the Administration menu and click on Course Gradebook Settings 

2. The following screen opens up:

Notice that some courses have the letter-grade grade book enabled, others have Standards Based (SBGB) gradebook enabled, some have none and others have Both.  Below is an example how turning SBGB on for Grade 4 homeroom.

3. Click on none to the right of Grade 4.

4. Turn on the Standards based Gradebook. 

Set the Standards Overall Grading Policy to “No Overall Score”

5. Click Save

It is turned on now: 

How to Map Distance Learning Skills to a Course

Go to the Administration menu and then click Manage Skill Sets

On the left side of the screen

• Click on Link Skills to Courses 

In this example we are using Grade 4 homeroom although you could use other classes that do not already have skill associated with them.  Middle and High Schools may need to associate a learning log with every academic course.

1. Choose the Distance Learning Weekly skillset:

2. Check all of the days of the week: 

3. Click Close 

 4. The system is now set up.  

What happens if I don’t see the courses for which I want to set up the learning logs in Course Gradebook Settings?

For example, if Grades 4 through 8 are missing...

This is because in Desktop SchoolWise the Marking Systems for these courses are set to NONE 

This is normal because until now grades were not attached to the homeroom classes but academic courses instead.  So now because of the need for a learning log system the Marking System should be set to Skills (Standards).  Push the Edit button, set the Marking System to Skills for the courses you need and then save.

Going back to the Web system (you may need to log out and back in to refresh) you will now see the missing courses: 

In this example none of the courses have the Standards Based gradebooks turned on.

Clicking on gradebook type (Letter Only or none) opens the following where you can turn on the standards gradebooks: 

After doing this for all the courses where you need the Learning Log the display will look like the following: 

Now you need to link the skills:

Click the Manage Skill Sets button: 

Then Link Skills to Courses: 

Notice the Linked to Skill Set fields display None 

Clicking on each of them in turn you will see the linking form where you set Distance Learning Weekly as the skill set to use: 

Check all of the days of the week: 

Click Close at the bottom and then you will see that all of those course have a skill set of Distance Learning Weekly: