What is the Valar Social Learning Platform?

Introduction

The Valar community on Slack gives you the opportunity to connect and engage with your fellow students. It’s a place to exchange ideas, engage in discussion on course materials and concepts, to receive notifications about course administrative topics, and more. We want you to ask thoughtful questions and receive help when you need it, and also to feel empowered to help others—after all, teaching is one of the best ways to learn. There is high value in discussion, in circulating your ideas among and getting feedback from your fellow students who are learning material at the same time as you. We want you to be part of this amazing community of learners.

We recommend you:

1. Download the Slack apps for desktop and mobile. You can read how to do this on Slack's website.
2. Help other students when they have questions. What could you contribute to the conversation? Do you know the answer? Do you know a partial answer? Can you reframe the question in a way that would be helpful? Can you put another spin on an answer that’s already up? Do you have a different opinion? If you think other people would find value in your post or comment, go for it! 
3. Ask your own questions. Not sure how to solve a problem? Aren’t sure why you missed the answer to a problem? Want some clarification? Ask your fellow students. Don’t be afraid to speak up. If you’ve got a question, there are dozens of other students with the same question who would love it if you broke the ice. 
4. Post interesting content like news articles, case studies or other material you think would help your fellow students learn more or look at a topic in a new light. 
5. Use handy Slack tools like pinning messages and replying in threads. Pinning is a way to tag or star certain messages so that they are easy for you to find again. Replying in a thread to messages and makes it easier to organize discussions and track each other's comments. 

What type of behavior do we expect?

We’d like to lay down a few ground rules so you know what type of behavior we expect and don’t expect in this group:

• Do’s
  • Be honest, open, friendly, and respectful
  • Post on-topic discussions and other material that you think your classmates would find interesting
  • Engage in discussion to make the Slack group a lively, rewarding, and fun place
• Don’t’s
  • Use offensive or derogatory language
  • Post links to offensive material
  • Spam the group with irrelevant information or advertisements

We’ll give you a heads-up if you’ve gone too far (if your classmates don’t first!). You might be removed from the program if your conduct continues. 

Conclusion