Multiple “editors”
I was finally able to get my students signed up, and they had a great time experimenting with how they could create a page! Now we need to get serious, but I think I did not really understand how this will work.
My original plan was this: I set up a site with a blank page for each student, thinking they could each create their own page. But when I shared the site I realized they could not edit my site, and if they put it into their own resources (so they had a copy), they would each be editing a separate copy and everything would not be in one place.
So if I understood what I read in the help, they each need to create their own project, send me the link to it, and I set the links in my project to connect with their work. Is this correct? Or is there a better way to do this? I’d hate to get too far into the process before I find out I’m on the wrong track!
Thanks for any help you can give. It’s taking a while, but I’m still hopeful I’ll get this figured out!
Jane
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Hi Jane,
Wonderful questions. You will figure it all out! Keep in mind that you’re dealing with powerful software that gives you a lot of sophisticated options. As things fall into place, you’ll have students creating and sharing wonderful projects.
Now some answers. It’s not a good idea to have multiple people working in the same account on the same project. It’s theoretically possible, but the chances of mistakes that lead to deleting or modifying someone else’s work are too numerous.
Here are other options:
1) You can have students create projects that they just share with each other within their group. Everybody can see everybody else’s project but not change it. People outside the group can’t see them.
2) You can give student projects individual web address and link to them from a common menu. You click on a project in the menu, it opens in another window, you view it, close it, and return to the menu to open another project. It would work like this college project:
http://www.trintuition.com/sed410/fall06
This is particularly useful if the student projects are complex with multiple screens.
3) If the projects are only one screen - or maybe two - you can bring them all together in one project, in which you copy and paste all their screens. You put it online or share it within the group.
4) We’ve added powerful student management tools to the workBench. Click on the “Userlist” button in the workBench, or go to http://tf.trintuition.com/mypage and log in. You can see, sort, and modify all kinds of student data. If you open the “User Stats” section, you’ll see a column entitled “Projects.” Click on the number listed for a particular student, and you’ll see and be able to open any of that student’s projects. If you just want to check progress or grade projects without anyone sharing them, this is an easy solution.
Tell me which option you like best, and I’ll give you details on how to do it.
Wow! I love the Userlist and “User Stats” section - I didn’t realize it was there! I will certainly use that to check progress.
A question as I was exploring the “Permissions” part - if I uncheck “publish” does that mean the students cannot accidentally publish something to the web? Will it affect anything else, such as if we later would want to use option #2 above and have their projects linked together for parents, etc. to view?
Re: which option I would use - for now I will probably try #4 to keep track of progress and maybe #3 so that a finished product could be shared with the parents.
Hi Jane,
If you uncheck “publish,” students can’t give a screen a web address. It’s important to know that unchecking “publish” isn’t retroactive. If they were previously allowed to create web addresses, those addresses are still in place and still work.
What this means in practical terms is that you could bring students into a lab, check their “publish” permission in the Userlist, have them create web addresses for a project and share those addresses with you, and then promptly uncheck the “publish” permission. The web addresses would all work, but students couldn’t put other projects online.
When you get to the point of using option #3, let me know, and I’ll give you detailed, step-by-step instructions to make it easy. I’m hoping that before long, we’ll start on our group-management video tutorials.
Ron,
I am just about ready to bring the individual pages my students are working on together into one project - so I think I am ready for those step-by-step instructions you promised!
Today we uploaded pictures the students took last week. They were excited! It would be so much nicer if we had this class more than once a week so we could move faster on it - but that’s not your issue!
Thanks for your help!
Hi Jane,
I’m assuming you want to combine them into one project. There are several ways to do it, but here’s an initial take.
1) Have each student drag his or her completed project over your name in the Group list, sharing the project with you.
2) Click on the “Manage your resources” button when you first log in, or on that bottom of the workBench screen. You may have to refresh your resources (small circular button in the bottom of the Key), and the shared projects will appear in your “Shared with me” list.
3) Multiply select a bunch of them in the “Shared with me” list and then EITHER drag them into My Resources on the far left, OR click on the “Make me a copy” button in the Toolbox. You’re making your own copies of the projects
You’ll be asked if you want to have a copy of all the resources in the projects, all the images and files that were used to make them. If you think you might like to save the combined project as an example after the students delete their individual screens and resources, then grab everything. Otherwise, click on “No.”
4) Now start a new project that is going to be the home of all the individual screens that the students produced. On the homepage, you might want to describe the project and make a menu with all the students’ names. Save the project
5) The next part is repetitive but goes fast. Open a student’s one-page project, click on the screen icon in the Sitemap to select it (It turns red.), and then click on the copy button on top of the Toolbox. You just copied the whole screen.
6) Open your master project again and click on paste on top of the Toolbox, pasting that student’s screen into the master project. Change the name of the student’s screen from “Home” to the student’s initials or first name, so that you can identify it and link to it from your menu later. Repeat the process for all the students.
7) Look through the students’ screens to find a good location to add a small menu. Then open one of the student’s screens and add a text box in the location that you’ve selected. Move the Visibility Slider to 100 to make it opaque. Type in “ Menu Previous Next.” Make the box a dark color and the text a light color or vise-versa.
8 After your done making this mini-menu, click outside of the text box and then back in it to select the box, then click on “copy” on top of the Toolbox. You just made a copy of this little menu. Open each student’s screen by double clicking on it and paste the little menu in by clicking on “paste” at the top of the Toolbox. It’s good to keep it always in the same location on all student screens, so that it’s easy for people to find. Pick a good location for the first one before you copy and paste.
9) Link from each student’s name on the main Home page to that student’s screen.
10) Link from the word “Menu” on each student’s screen back to the Home page.
11) String the screens together so that visitors can go forward and backward through them using the “Previous” and “Next” buttons.
12) When you get done, test the links in Preview mode. Save often. Give the project it’s own web address.
13) Once the project contains all the students screens, you can delete the projects that they shared from the “Shared with me” list, and you can delete the copies you made in “My resources.” If you saved their resources, you can’t delete those.
A few added notes: if you have a lot of students, you can create an account for each class that isn’t a person – you can name it “English 8 Projects” or “History Projects #1” – anything you like. Students can “hand-in” their projects to that account, and you can work in that account rather than filling up your personal account.
Suggestion: if you haven’t already, take a look at the two videos on “Adding Screens” in the tutorial materials. Also, take a look at the sitemap of this project below for organization. Although the MENU, PREVIOUS, and NEXT links are invisible buttons on each screen, the Sitemap suggests one possible structure for your project.
http://www.trintuition.com/gwaz2/art
Any questions, get right back to me. I hope this is clear!