Hello!

You are likely here because you are registered to begin the MA Leadership or the MA Educational Leadership at Trinity Western University in our new online format.

I am the Manager of Online Learning and Instructional Technology at TWU and I have the privilege of leading you through an orientation to our online learning environment.

Some of you may be returning to higher education after establishing your career, while others have more recent experience in higher ed. Whatever your situation, we know that learning in an online environment can be challenging. To help you make the transition into graduate studies at TWU, we have created an orientation mini-course and we offer it to you free of charge.

The course typically runs for four weeks prior to the beginning of LDRS 500 (although anyone can participate at any time), and will provide you with some skills in navigating, interacting, and learning in our online courses.

The online courses in the MA Leadership (including this one) are hosted in a web environment called WordPress, an open source web publishing platform. One of the unique characteristics of our program is that the work that you do will be hosted on your own WordPress site and automatically syndicated to the main course hub. Don’t worry if this doesn’t make sense right now, we will walk you through getting set up and ready to go in the first week of the orientation so that when you begin your first course, you will be able to make a smooth transition.

To get started, please scroll down and start by reading the ‘Course Overview’, ‘Course Navigation’, ‘Online Privacy”, and ‘Scholarship on the Web’, then proceed to the ‘Digital Skills’ section.

Please note that you will need to have access to your TWU student email account prior to proceeding. You should have received an email address that ends with ‘@mytwu.ca’. Without this email, you won’t be able to sign up for WordPress.

There are two units in the course. The first will lead you through getting set up in WordPress and connecting your site to the main course site. Make sure you complete all of the activities, especially on the ‘WordPress Set Up’ page.

As you get started, please email me at colin[dot]madland[at]twu[dot]ca if you have any difficulties!

I’m looking forward to learning with you and getting you set up for success in your studies at TWU.

Colin