Using your Student account for the first time

Your Username and PasswordYour student account username looks like: firstname.lastname.XXAnd your default password will be your date of birth: ddmmyyyy

Log on for the first time (or after your password has been reset)At campus: When logging on to a PC you will be asked to change your password as you log on.

The new one needs to have at least 8 characters and contain both characters (upper and lowercase) and numbers.

Off campus: You cannot use email or Fronter until you have reset your default password.Use Internet Explorer to go to VKey (vkey.education.tas.gov.au) You will be asked to change your password. The new one needs to have at least 8 characters and contain both characters (upper and lowercase) and numbers.

Log out of VKey. Within minutes, you should be able to use Email and e-learningYou can reset your password in Vkey anytime you need.

Logging into Fronter

Fronter can be accessed from any internet connection via the public TasTAFE website under Current Students section / eLearning Student login / Fronter.

http://www.tastafe.tas.edu.au/current/elearning-student-login/

If you get an ‘incorrect username or password’ error, you may need to access vkey to reset your password manually (see above).

After logging in, look for your room in the Entrance Hall or by using the Room option at the top of your screen.

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Getting started in Fronter

Figure 1: Customising Today page

Fronter ViewsThere are two primary views available in Fronter: Classic and Play. The view is a personal tool and only impacts on you. By default, Fronter should open in the classic view until changed.

Classic:Uses less screen real estate

Play:Visually appealing but takes up more screen real estate

Change Fronter to your preferred view (Classic or Play)To change your Fronter view, click on the down arrow next to your name in the top right hand corner. Select My Profile, then scroll down to Personal Settings. Click on Personal Settings and then select your preferred view from the Stylesheet (CSS) drop list.

Today Page

Fronter will always open on the Today page as it is the place that contains information and links relevant to you. Messages and notifications from your rooms will be displayed here. It also features the Entrance Hall - this is where shortcut icons for your rooms will be displayed.

Customise your Today pageIt is possible to customise your Today page to meet your individual needs.

Make sure that you are on the Today page (click on the tab at the top of the window to navigate to the Today page).

Select Customise Today from the right hand side of the window.

Select the preferred display mode and the elements. These can be changed as often as you require.

Get detailed information about the Today page and available content elements from the Fronter help at: http://help.fronter.com/en/fronter/index.php/Today

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Room elements

Each Fronter room will open displaying the same key elements.From the Rooms tab (in Personal Tools) you can navigate to your rooms. The Tab navigation displays the rooms you have open. The light blue tab is the currently displayed room. Tabs can be closed as required by holding the mouse over the right hand corner of the tab and clicking on the X. The Today tab cannot be closed.The Breadcrumb navigation shows where you are in Room. For example, the breadcrumb in the image above shows that you are in the Room TasTAFE Training, that you are looking at Room Overview.

Room Tool bar is always located on the left of the screen. The Tool bar can be minimised by clicking the arrow in the blue bar located directly above the Frontpage icon.

Text Editor

The text editor allows most of the functions required to build content. If you've not used an editor before, it is worth spending a few minutes familiarising yourself.

Figure: Image of Text editor with colour overlay

Format Text:

Normal, font, size, bold, italic, underline and score are all very familiar icons to most of us. The icons for colouring text and text background may also be familiar. To use each of these icons: select the icon prior to entering text or highlight text and click on the icon.

Use the smiley icon to insert animated emoticons. The list and bullet icons changes ordinary text to list/bullet text or changes list/bullet text to ordinary text. It is also easy to indent (or decrease indent) by using the indent or decrease indent icons. It's important when creating text not to use the space bar to place text in the container as it will change when viewed on different sized screens, instead use the indent icon. The horizontal bar icon might be new to you ... use it to separate out sections of materials.

The Omega icon provides access to special characters ©, while the Maths editor allows for building equations. The super and sub script icons can also be used to create simple equations. E=mc^2

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Forums

DiscussionA discussion forum is a threaded forum that you can join in with at any level and contribute directly to specific topics raised. The discussion forum has a headline for each contribution so you can quickly browse / search through the discussion topics and reply to the relevant part of the forum.

To search, put a check in the box for filtering mode

Filter by date displays the contributions that are written within the dates you specify

Filter by contributions shows contribution of a selected person. The names of all the persons that are participating are shown in the drop-down menu.

Filter by text - write in a phrase and Fronter will search for instances of it in the contribution field Click Search

If you want to make a link between this discussion and your own Today page, you can click on the button Add to favourites on the top right corner in the discussion. You may have to customise your today page to view favourites.

Update: This button refreshes the discussion page for new contributions.

Viewing / Replying to a Discussion

Normal/Contracted View: The discussion forum is shown in the contracted view by default. In normal view, all of the contributions to a conversation are displayed in full, one after another. In contracted view only the headline of the conversation is displayed.

Reply to a contribution: Click on the comment you would like to respond to and click reply. Type your answer in the text editor. Your contribution will be placed after the initial remark. In order to see or open your contribution, the thread must be extracted by clicking on the + sign next to the original comment, this will open up the thread of conversation.

Add a new contribution: To participate in a conversation, open up the forum and type your comment in the text editor at the bottom of the conversation tree. In contracted view click on the Add new contribution hyperlink at the bottom of the page. Write a Headline - the headline text will be displayed in the tree structure before the contribution is opened. Then write your contribution to the discussion in the text editor before saving.

Delete a contribution: You have the possibility to delete a contribution written by yourself as long as nobody has replied to your contribution.

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