Getting Started.
So you're a new student at the U, and are just sitting down at your desk in the Agora. Where to begin? At the beginning of course. Let's look through all the features of the Agora and learn how to use them in a slow and methodical manner.

Step One. Your Desk
This is a good place to start. (Although you could start anywhere!) Think of your desk as the hub of the Agora as you will experience it. When you click on Your Desk Home, you will see the following icons listed across the top of the desk page:
-My Tiki
-Preferences
-My Info
-Messages
-Notepad
-Mini Calendar
-My Watches

What's a Tiki you ask? A Tiki is the type of program used to run the Agora. You will see this word pop up here and there in the Agora. Think of it as the Building which houses our meeting space.
Under My Tiki, you will see all of your watched items and your posts in the Forums.

Now Click on Preferences. Here you can set your real name, your country, your language and whether or not you would like your info to be visible on mouse over to other students. You can also add an Avatar in this section.

Uploading Your Avatar: An Avatar is a tiny picture that will be associated with all of your posts and comments in the Agora. It gives other students a chance to 'see' you, or a bit of your personality. An Avatar can be uploaded directly from your computer. Keep in mind that this needs to be a very small photo. It should be square, measuring about 45 X 45 pixels. Don't know how to make a photo that small? Watch for our upcoming photo editing tutorial here in the Library.

My Info When clicked, this icon displays your current account settings quickly at a glance.

Messages. You can send your teachers and fellow students private messages within the Agora. You can even set the priority. Students can also choose to be notified by email when they recieve a message over a set priority.

Your Notepad. This is like a sandbox where you can play and create messages, forum posts and other documents or submissions to add into the Agora later. It's like a draft document creator.

Your Personal Mini Calendar. Plan your day or set your class goals. Schedule your class's live chat. Pencil in classes you'd like to take or just visit it to see what day it is!

My Watches Under the My Watches Icon, you can quickly see at a glace the things in the U that are of special interest to you; like a forum post you are following, or the comments on a photo you posted. Any item you choose to watch in the Agora will appear under this link.