Mastering Halo Learn: A Comprehensive Guide to GCU's Online Learning Platform
For students and faculty at Grand Canyon University (GCU), Halo Learn serves as the central hub for online courses. Navigating this platform effectively is crucial for a successful academic experience. This article provides a comprehensive overview of Halo Learn, covering everything from initial access and course navigation to communication tools and troubleshooting common issues.
Accessing Halo Learn
It is generally recommended that GCU students and faculty access their courses through the GCU Portal, as the portal will always direct to the appropriate link for your specific course.
However, there may be times in which the GCU Portal is temporarily inaccessible due to scheduled maintenance or service interruption. If you choose to go directly to Halo rather than use the GCU Portal, you'll be asked to log in.
Press Go to Class to access a specific class.
NOTE You may be prompted to complete multi-factor authentication (MFA) after successfully logging in. While you can access your classroom during the GCU Portal maintenance, you won’t be able to access the class while the Halo classroom is under maintenance. Halo | Learn scheduled maintenance occurs every Friday morning from 12:15 AM - 4 AM Arizona time. During this time, all Halo classes are temporarily unavailable.
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Navigating Your Course
Learning how to navigate through your course can be one of the most difficult parts of having classes online. The class navigation menu will always appear on the left side of your course. Here's a breakdown of the key areas:
Home Page
The home page of Halo | Learn provides access to your current and past classes. Each class card contains information about the class, such as the dates in which it is active, the instructor's name, and the number of students on the roster. Past classes can be accessed using the “Past Classes” tab at the top of the Home Page.
Class Calendar
When you access your course, you will be taken to the class calendar. Located on the calendar page is a Weekly Calendar which displays your current assignments, quizzes, discussion questions, and participation. Clicking on a specific week number at the top of the calendar will allow you to see any past, present, or future assignments.
Syllabus
The Syllabus provides detailed information on everything in your class. Expanding a topic in the syllabus will allow you to access your assignments, quizzes, and discussion topics.
Gradebook
The Gradebook provides up-to-date information on your personal progress in a course. You will be able to see your overall letter grade, percentage for the class, and points earned for all assignments and individual topics. All the assignments are listed under their correlated topic.
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Discussion Forums
The Discussion Forums will allow you to view Class Introductions and all of the discussion questions for the course. The Class Questions section serves as an open forum to ask questions that anyone in the class can answer. If you’re used to attending in-person classes, this is the online equivalent to raising your hand and asking a question out loud.
Classroom Materials
The Classroom Materials is another place in your course to view the assignments, quizzes, and discussion questions. Each topic will be listed on the left side under Classroom Materials. After clicking on a topic, you will be able to view all the information for that topic.
Institution Resources
The Institution Resources will give access to different resources GCU has to offer students.
Communication within Halo Learn
Messaging
To communicate with the instructor in your course, you can use the Messages button located at the upper left corner next to My Classes.
The Messages View serves as a communication channel between for all students and instructor. If you are a student, you can send private messages to any instructor that you currently have a class with. If you are an instructor, you can send private messages to any student that you currently have in a class.
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Using Messages in Halo
The use of Halo’s messaging feature functions differently depending on if you are a student or an instructor.
Student Perspective
Once inside the Messages View, your current instructors’ names will appear in a list on the left. Type your message in the box below. If needed, you can also attach a file by selecting the Add Attachment link beneath the textbox. Halo | Learn also has an auto-save feature that will indicate when the last changes were made. Your message will appear above with a date and time stamp. There is no way to edit a message once it’s been sent, but you can hide the post and make a new one. To hide a post, click the eye icon on the upper right of the message box. The post will then turn grey and your instructor will not be able to read the message. Once your instructor responds, you’ll be notified via the Messages icon. A number will appear to indicate how many new messages you have received. Click the icon to be taken back to your Inbox at any time. Depending on your alert settings, you will receive an alert through the Alerts bell icon in the top right corner of your classroom. If you have enabled notifications on your Halo Learn mobile app for private messages, you will also receive alerts there. Instructors are required to respond to messages within 24 - 48 hours.
Instructor Perspective
Once inside the Messages View, you will be directed to any unanswered messages. You can select All to see all of your courses. Inside each class will be the students that had conversations with you that have been answered. Select any of their names to continue messaging the student. Type your message in the box below. If needed, you can also attach a file by selecting the Add Attachment link beneath the textbox. Halo | Learn allows a maximum of 10 files to be uploaded, with each file having a maximum size of 20MB. Halo | Learn also has an auto-save feature that will indicate when the last changes were made. The message will appear above with a date and time stamp. There is no way to edit a message once it’s been sent, but you can hide the post and make a new one. To hide a post, click the eye icon on the upper right of the message box. The post will then turn grey and your students will not be able to read the message. Once your student responds, you’ll be notified via the Messages icon. A number will appear to indicate how many new messages you have received. Depending on your alert settings, you will receive an alert through the Alerts bell icon in the top right corner of your classroom. If you have enabled notifications on your Halo Learn mobile app for private messages, you will also receive alerts there.
Instructors and students will be able to communicate with each other after the class is over up to 3 weeks past the course end date.
Sometimes when looking at your messages, you might see a +2 or more next to the profile picture of the instructor. This usually is a sign that the conversation has more than 2 people participating.
If you are unable to view your conversation due to the message box taking up too much of your screen, you can either to adjust the zoom level in your browser or collapse the formatting tools. This should automatically resize the page to show all the messages in your conversation.
Important Time Considerations
In Halo | Learn, the GCU Time will always show you the current time that the classroom uses which is based on Arizona Mountain Standard Time (MST). We recommend checking this time to determine when you need to submit your assignments on time. You can also adjust your computer’s time to reflect the same time listed here.
Students generally gain access to courses 3 days before the start date, BUT we cannot guarantee access until the start date of the course.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Students may encounter error messages when logging in to or using their Halo | Learn classroom. These errors usually indicate an issue with your account and can help identify what needs to be fixed.
Common Error Messages and Solutions
This article explains the common error messages, what they mean, and how to resolve them. The best way to access your LMS classroom is through your GCU Portal. If you continue to receive this error, select the Switch Account button and then try to sign in into your Halo classroom again. One reason is if there is a network issue that prevents the Halo platform from loading. Make sure that you have a working internet connection. This error could also occur if the class that you are trying to access does not have a faculty member assigned to it yet. You may also receive this error if you are in the wrong role. For example, a faculty may be both an instructor and an instructional assistant for a different class. If you have multiple roles and receive this error after clicking a link to a class from within the GCU Portal, we recommend logging directly into Halo and switching your role. This error could also occur if you are attempting to access a class too early.
Errors in the URL
Sometimes the error code appears in the URL.
- If you see the url has 403, this means that you accessed something that unfortunately you don’t have access to.
- If you see this in the URL, this means that your account cannot be found in the Halo system. Select the Switch Account button to log into another account.
- If you see this in the URL, this means that there is not a role assigned to your account in Halo. This is usually because your class was not built, or you were not assigned to a class.
- When seeing this in the url, this means that there is not an account found on that instance of Halo. Make sure you are navigating to the correct Halo platform.
General Errors
After you log in, you may experience error messages while using the Halo classroom. These error messages can randomly appear in your Halo classroom. If you are receiving the error message “Network Error”, this can be a sign that you might have spyware on your computer preventing you from using your classroom. If you receive this error message, we recommend contacting GCU Technical Support. You can also receive errors in your Halo classroom when you try to submit your assignments. There are multiple different error messages that you may run into while submitting your assignments. You may also receive errors when you try to upload the assignment to LopesWrite.
Other potential issues
If you are in multiple classes through GCU at the same time, you may need to switch between the classes. There are many different factors that can prevent you from seeing your class. One common factor is that the class has not started yet. If your class has started and you still don’t see your current class, we recommend reaching out to your counselor. There may have been some scheduling changes or due to inactivity you may have been removed from the class. Keep in mind, when starting the class, it is important participate within your class during the first week to avoid being removed from the class. Some users may have multiple Microsoft accounts. If this scenario applies to you, you may encounter an issue when logging out of Halo with one account and trying to log in with another. This occurs because your browser remembers your previous login information and enters it automatically. Access Halo using an incognito or private browsing tab. Navigate to office.com and sign out of your active Microsoft session. You may also see the message, "This account was not found". This message appears when you are logged into a Microsoft account that is not found within the Halo | Learn classroom. Select the Switch Account button to switch the account that is being logged into Halo.
Mobile Accessibility with Halo Alerts
Get Halo Alerts on your mobile Only for iPhone Free · Designed for iPhone The Halo Learn mobile app is designed as a companion application for all students and faculty using the Halo Learn Management System (LMS). The primary objective of the application is to provide near real-time push notifications for events identified by the user. This mobile app is designed to keep you connected to your Halo classroom with Halo Alerts, ensuring you stay up-to-date with the latest classroom alerts while on the go.
Once you install the Halo Learn mobile app, be sure to enable Halo Alerts for your account by clicking on the ‘My Halo Settings’ link under the No Halo Alerts message. Students and Faculty can elect to receive several different Halo Alert messages in the mobile app.
Alert Options
Both faculty and students can elect to receive alerts when new private messages and new announcements are posted. Halo students can choose to receive alerts when assessment grades are published, assessments are reassigned, and new group collaboration messages are posted for group assignments. All alerts in Halo are opt-in, giving you the flexibility to choose which alerts to receive and on which devices. Please note that you must have an active Halo Learn account with GCU or a GCU partner school to use the Halo Learn mobile app.
Additional Resources
A “Help and Resources” menu will appear. If you can’t find a guide that helps with the issue you’re experiencing, click the GCU Help Center to look through articles that GCU Technical Support has to assist you with your class.
NOTE We also have a video series available on the Student Success Center that provides a brief overview of the Halo Classroom.
