SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COLLEGE - TRAINING SITE
How to Navigate this Site for Online Orientation
Before you begin taking an online course at Southwest Florida College, you are required to do the following:
- Download the Technical Training and the Academic Policies and Procedures Manuals from the left-hand navigation bars on this page or the 'Printables' tab above.
- Watch the video tutorials by clicking-on the 'Videos' tab above. There is a built-in quiz in the first video and both videos should take you no more than 20-30 minutes to complete.
- Download, save, fill-out, and email the confirmation form to let us know you have completed your orientation.
eBooks Are Coming, eBooks Are Coming!
In SWFC's continous effort to make sure your textbooks are in your hands at the start of each and every single term, and to keep tuition and book costs lowered, we are so very pleased to let you know, starting in the Spring 2013 mini-term, we have furthered our partnership with MBS Direct to bring eBooks to you right inside your online courses.
What this means to you? If you have a mini-term class scheduled for Spring 2013, which starts on May 7, 2013, you will have your textbook and online bookshelf built right in your course for you to access.
You will receive an email to your student email account (@student.swfc.edu) with a one time username and passcode and when you access the bookshelf for the first time, you will need to enter it into the assigned login boxes. Once this has been completed once, in any of your courses, you will never have to "login" again. Your bookshelf will follow you to each and every class from then on.
Pretty neat, right?
If you have any trouble with the email or with accessing the bookshelf, you will contact MBS directly just like you have with the physical textbooks, and to learn more about the MBS bookshelf in all your online courses (starting in Spring 2013's mini-term), click on this link: Direct Digital Reference Guide.
Online M (mobile) Site
In our efforts to continuously provide you with the latest advances from the digital age, we are pleased to announce the mobile (smart device) access for online courses is available for use.
The new "m site" (or mobile site) allows you to see upcoming due dates, view recent course activity, use filters if you have multiple classes or view all course activity at once, and even post discussion responses from your mobile smart devices.
You can access the mobile site by typing m.swfconline.org into your smart device browser. You will login with the same user credentials, and will be able to keep up with your courses while you may be on the move.
Here are some videos to help you make the transition:
Student Intro: http://epmedia.ecollege.com/media/eteach/atctrain/studentintro.html
Discussions: http://epmedia.ecollege.com/media/eteach/atctrain/discussions.html
Stay tuned for more upcoming initiatives to make your online experience more rich and robust!
Social Course Home Beta
In a few select courses and the Online Academic Success Center (ASC), we are beta testing a new social course home. If you happen to be in a course that is testing this, you may notice that the Course Home screen looks different and interactive. Since this is a beta, there will be bugs and fixes that happen along the way. We have been told that the least buggy browser is Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), though, many of us at SWFC have found FireFox to be less buggy. Keep in mind all browsers will contain a certain degree of issues.
Known issues include slow loading and chat features can become glitchy at times. We are also aware that announcements may not load every time.
To see how it all works, and how to set up some of the new features, visit: http://epmedia.ecollege.com/media/eteach/atctrain/SCH-student.html
If you come across other issues, please email your instructor or the Distance Education Team so we can submit our findings to our online vendor.
We hope you enjoy all the wonderful advancements we are and will be making to make your online learning more enjoyable.