FAQ
1. What is this "online school"?
school-online.ca is an educational experience connecting students and teachers through the Internet. Through the Continuing Education Department in the Peel District School Board students can take internet-based courses taught by an online teacher. Students are assisted by the administration and its support staff. In addition, day school teachers may use school-online.ca resources to complement their practice. school-online.ca resources include courses, resources, communication tools (discussion, chat, email), gradebook
2. Do online credits count toward my diploma?
Yes, they do. Since each course follows the Ministry of Education curriculum, they are eligible credits towards your diploma. See your guidance counsellor if you are unsure which courses you require for graduation.
3. Can anyone enrol in online courses?
All students in the Peel District School Board can enrol in one of the courses at school-online.ca with the permission of their day school principal or designate. Adults and students not registered in the PDSB can also enrol but will follow a different registration procedure.
4. Are there real teachers delivering the courses?
Yes, Ontario-certified, Peel teachers are delivering the online courses.
5. Do I have to go to a classroom?
No, for the most part you will be completing your course work using the online resources and course content. For the first day of class, however, you will meet your teacher and the other students in a face-to-face meeting.
6. How does the teacher know when I am "attending" the course?
Students are expected to submit assignments and participate in discussions. If you are neglecting these expected activities, teachers will be contacting you directly. At some points within the course, you may be asked to participate in a chat session, which requires you to be online at a specific time. The system can also track your activity in the course (i.e. when you logged in, which pages you have viewed, when you logged out, how much time you spent online, your IP address etc)
7. Does the online course take less time to work on compared to a classroom course?
Generally, you should plan to spend the same amount of time working on the course materials in an online course as you do in a classroom course. Typically a student in a full-credit (110 hour) course would spend a minimum of 50 hours online, engaged with the course content directly, and an additional required time would be spent offline working on course assignments and activities.
8. I am not sure if I have the technical knowledge or skills to be successful in an online course. How would I know If I could do one of these courses?
Students who are successful in an online course are usually self-motivated, responsible students. If you are curious and can learn independently you have some of the attitudes needed to learn online. To test yourself, go to the Self-Test and see how you do.
9. Do these courses cost any money?
If you are a resident of Ontario, there is no tuition. Otherwise, tuition fees may be charged. There is a non-refundable consumable/support fee of $25. These fees will be collected on the first day of classes. (Please refer to the Calendar link to find out the location of the first class where an orientation and payment of fees will take place. Course fees can be paid by cash or by cheque made out to the Peel District School Board.).
10. How will the teachers assess my performance in a course?
Teachers will use a variety of assessment methods including assignments, discussions, projects, quizzes, ejournals and a final assessment. Students may be required to complete their final assessment in a supervised setting. Enough notice will be given for students to make appropriate arrangements. After the course has finished, your teacher will report your mark to you. If your are a Peel student, your home school will be notified of your final mark. Report cards will be mailed on the last day of classes. If you are not a Peel student, it is up to you to inform your day school of your mark.
11. How do I arrange to have a transcript sent to me?
Students who require a transcript must make the request during the orientation session. Official transcripts will be prepared and mailed to students at the end of the semester. The cost is $2.00 per transcript. It is the student’s responsibility to forward these documents to the University or College.
12. What technical equipment do I need?
All students must have a computer with Internet access. The minimum requirements for the computer are:
Windows PC Pentium 233 (Pentium III recommended) CPU, 256 Mg RAM, 16 bit sound card, 800 x 600 Display resolution on your monitor, 8X CD-ROM, Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP, 56 Kbps modem, printer, Internet Service Provider Browser: Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, Netscape 7.0 or higher, Mozilla 1.7 or Firefox 1.5 ( not AOL we do not support it).
Macintosh: OS10x operating system. The internal HTML Editor tool and file upload tool in our course management system is not supported by MacIntosh computers running an operating system older than OS10x. All other requirements to match the equivalent Windows PC above. Browser: Mozilla 1.7 or Firefox 1.5 ( not AOL we do not support it).
Our course management system does require cookies on the client browser. And you must turn off any popup blockers since all courses have popup windows included.
Software: A Word Processor for all courses (preferably MS Word or one that can read Word documents). Your Word processor must be able to save in MS Word97 or Rich Text Format. Additional software requirements are dependent on the course.
You can test out your computer hardware here to see if your system meets the requirements.
13. When do courses start and end?
Full-credit courses start 1-2 weeks after the start of the semester in a day school. Most half and quarter credit courses start halfway through each semester. Look at the school calendar for dates. In Summer School, all courses run from the start date in July to the finish date in early August. Consult the Calendar section of school-online calendar for specific dates.
14. Are the courses private and secure?
With your login and password, all the course activities are accessed only by the students enrolled in that course.
15. How many courses can I take at one time?
It is recommended that you only take the equivalent of one full credit at any one time. This may be made up of 2 half-credit courses or one full credit course. The workload for two full-credit courses at one time would be too much for most students. The decision to take more than one full-credit per semester is made by your counsellor.
16. Does my counsellor have to sign my registration form?
Yes. Day school students are only admitted with the approval of their principal or designate, usually the guidance counsellor. PDSB guidance counsellors can register their students directly in the Student Information System (SIS). For students in day schools in other boards the guidance counsellor must sign your registration form and FAX it from the school.
17. How do I withdraw from my online course?
Please log back into your online course and send an email to Admin, Continuing Education and the Computer Secretary to say you are dropping the course with perhaps a reason why. Make sure you tell your guidance counsellor at school (if you are in day school).
18. How do I clear my browser cache?
Sometimes you may experience a warning message in your course asking you to reauthenticate. Almost always this is caused by a page that has had problems loading in your browser and the next time you go to access the page, the problem page is loaded from your cache.
Follow these instructions to clear your browser's cache:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x and 6
- Select "Tools" from the browser menu bar
- Select "Internet Options". The "General" tab at the top of the popup window should be automatically selected
- In the "Temporary Internet Files" box, click the "Delete Files" button.
- Click "OK".
Netscape Navigator 4.x and 7.x
- Select "Edit" from the browser menu bar.
- Select "Preferences".
- Select the "Advanced" option.
- Select the "Cache" option.
- To remove all the files currently in your memory cache, click "Clear Memory Cache."
- Click "OK".
- To remove all the files currently in your disk cache, click "Clear Disk Cache."
- Click "OK".
19. I am having problems accessing my course after the login page.
Slow loading of login page or My Page
1. Try another browser: Mozilla (download at http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/ ) or Netscape (download at http://www.netscape.com
2. Check your computer for adware and spyware. You can do this by running Ad-aware ( http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html ) and/or Spybot Search and Destroy ( http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022-10122137.html?part=dl-spybot&subj=dl&tag=but )
3. Though not necessary, it is always a good idea to update windows via windows update ( http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ )
4. As a last resort, try going to our login page using the following URL
http://206.47.240.13/Angel/home.asp
20. I can't seem to login to the ANGEL server. I keep getting an error that says "Session timeout...you may need to reauthenticate” when I try to login.
Apparently if you are using the Google web accelerator, it can prevent you from logging into Angel. You will get a “Session timeout… message when you try to login. The accelerator can either be turned off, or users can go to the Angel login page, then access the accelerator's options menu, then click on "Don't accelerate this website." This excludes Angel from the Google cache without having to disable accelerator
