Philosophy of Religion
Dr Tom Kerns

Philosophy of Religion

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How to download our classroom software

By now you have probably received your postcard from the Distance Learning Office and that means you are registered in the online Philosophy of Religion course.

Downloading your courseware:
Our courseware for this quarter is going to be FirstClass which is supported by Embanet.com in Toronto. Although you are taking this course through North Seattle Community College, the software (the way in which we will experience the course online) is run by the Embanet Corporation. If you have technical problems you will be able to solve them with their technical support helpline (416-446-5943) or you can email them at support@embanet.com. They are available any time of day or night, and my experience with them is that they are very helpful. Click here to download this software to your desktop (which you must do to access the rest of the course).

Logging into our FirstClass classroom:
Once you've downloaded the software onto your own computer, click on the setup button and type your User ID and Password in the spaces provided. Here's what embanet has told us your User ID and Password will be:

The user id and passwords for new students will be:

User ID: firstnamelastname (one word)
Password: changeme

For example: Sharon Lee
User ID: sharonlee
Password: changeme

You'll need to learn how to use the Embanet FirstClass software that you've downloaded. If you go to your embanet desktop you'll see that they have a help folder, and a tutorial somewhere inside it. You should work carefully through that tutorial so that you are comfortable doing all the necessary functions outlined there. Again, if (or when) you need help, a) you can call embanet support at 416-446-5943, or b) you can email them at support@embanet.com.

You'll want to change your password pretty soon, especially since everyone has exactly the same initial password. Here's how embanet explains the process of changing your password:

Modifying the password:

(1) Log into account
(2) On the top tool bar select "Connection"
(3) From the drop down window, select "Change Password"

Once the user has modified their password, "OK" the selection and the change will be saved.

To order your books:
The books for our course are available at the NSCC bookstore, or from most online booksellers, or from local bookstores. A few of our shorter readings will be available in full text editions online and you will be able to access those via the internet. As we get into the course I will let you know which readings will be available online. If you wish to contact the NSCC bookstore (which is managed by Barnes and Noble) they can be reached at 206-527-3637. Their hours can be found on the North Seattle website: Bookstore

If you do not have access to a computer at home, an online course such as this may be a real challenge for you. Still, there are open computer labs on campus that are available to all enrolled students.

Open computer labs:
There are two open computer labs available to all North students.The labs are located in the Instructional Building (IB) room 3303 (this lab has both PC's and Macs) and in the High Tech Learning Center (HT) room 1845B (all PC's). North's open computer labs have the widest variety of software on the campus and are open for walk-in use. The hours vary each quarter so please check either the campus home page or the doors outside the labs for specific lab hours. Policies and procedures for the labs are posted in the labs and the lab staff are very good about being available for help.

For help:
A reminder: You can call embanet support any time of day or night at 416-446-5943 or email them at support@embanet.com.

The Distance Learning Office at North Seattle is also prepared to answer your questions. Call or email for help. Contact the Distance Learning Office at distance@sccd.ctc.edu, or phone at 206-527-3738.

You may want to print out this message if it isn't comfortable to read on your screen. In fact, we find that if something is more than one screen long it is sometimes easier to just print it out and read it away from the computer. You may also want to do this for many of the mini-lectures you'll be reading this quarter. You may also want to print the class schedule (though I'll be adding to it each week), just so you have a printed version of when things are due.

A preliminary requirement:
You'll need to write a short biography about yourself, maybe a page or so long, or as long as you like. You'll post this in our classroom in the folder titled "PR Bios" (Embanet has chosen PR as their designator for Philosophy of Religion). Simplest way to do this is to first open up that Bio folder. Under the messages menu, click on "new message." Write your bio however you like. If you can put a photo of yourself in your biography, that would be great. (In fact, maybe what we'll do here is just give 623 extra credit points to every person who puts a photo in their biography sometime in the first week or two of the course.) The photos help make our classroom community a bit more personable, and the more personable the better in these online environments. Send your message to the class. By clicking send, it will place your message (bio) in the Bio folder. In that folder you'll see the biographies of all of the class members.

Please have your biography posted as soon as possible, but at least before Wednesday April 3rd at 6pm.

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