Whether you are an incoming student or in your last semster, this guide will provide information on Penn College's Platform for Learning And Teaching Online: P.L.A.T.O. A Desire2Learn platform, P.L.A.T.O. enables you to view your course assignments, see when your assignments are due, interact with your classmates and faculty, and much more. As well as giving you a breakdown of P.L.A.T.O.'s features, this guide will give you the knowledge to successfully navigate this platform to help you succeed in your classes.
When you log on to P.L.A.T.O., the first page that you will see is the Homepage. This page is the landing page that displays News postings, your email, and helpful links. These links will direct you to a number of resources, tools, and web pages that are discussed further down this page.
Whether on the Homepage or on a webpage in one of your courses, a variety of icons runs along the top of the page. These icons will be very helpful to you when navigating the P.L.A.T.O. site.
Starting from the top left hand side of your screen, the little black house icon will take you back to P.L.A.T.O.'s Homepage. This is a great shortcut back to P.L.A.T.O.'s Homepage.
This P.L.A.T.O. button will also redirect you back the the Homepage--while this may seem redundant, when you are in one of your courses, this button changes to your course's homepage and acts as a link back to your course's homepage.
The next icon is the "waffle" grid. When you click on the grid, a drop down menu that lists all of your courses will appear. You can then select the course you would like to view from the list.
The email icon allows you to send emails through P.L.A.T.O.'s site. While this may not be as user friendly as your Microsoft account, you can still send emails through P.L.A.T.O.'s email tool.
The icon of the two overlapping chat bubbles represents your subscription alerts. You can create subscription alerts so that you can be notified when grades are released, when a test or quiz is due, and many other alerts. You can be either emailed or texted when an alert is triggered.
Similar to the previous icon, the bell icon will notify you of any updates to the course. What qualifies as an "update" can range from a grade being updated to your professor creating a rubric for an upcoming paper. When there are updates to a course, a small red dot will appear along the top right corner of the bell. Clicking on the bell will expand a drop down menu that will show you the update.
The last icon will list your name. You have the option to either upload a profile picture or leave it blank. When you click on your name, a drop down menu will appear giving you the options of your Profile, Notifications, Account Settings, or Log Off.
The image to the left is a useful list of links to the various resources that are available through Penn College. Just to name a few, you will find:
Also included in the list is a link to many of the College's resources that will help you to navigate P.L.A.T.O. and grow academically.
In addition to the information described above, P.L.A.T.O.'s Homepage has a few more helpful features: the News feature and My Courses list. The News feature on the Homepage provides information on updates to the P.L.A.T.O. platform. The information that is posted here is will not be particular to your classes, but the postings will be about important and noteworthy changes made to the entire P.L.A.T.O. site.
The My Course list will be very helpful, too, because your courses can be listed there. You can create another shortcut to your classes' P.L.A.T.O. site. Instead of clicking on the "waffle" grid to navigate you your classes , you can pin your courses to the My Course List. In order to pin your classes, click in the waffle grid, and click the
"push pin" icon to pin the class to My Course List. Your class should then appear in your course list and can be used as another way to access your courses.