TR’s New Help Site

by Ron on January 19th, 2009

There are now almost 100 different text and video tutorial files on TR’s new Help site, as well as links to useful TR blog posts.The materials are organized into the following five main groups.

Creating Screens & Projects
Uploading & Organizing Resources
Working with Groups
Using the Calendar
Better Design

An important new addition is the search box. Type in any topic for which you have a question, and a selection of appropriate materials appears to offer you answers.

Under the “Creating Screens & Projects” section, dig into “Get a Good Start.” It contains most of the current videos, but its title may be a bit deceptive. It offers more than just a good start and will introduce you to valuable design strategies, shortcuts, and techniques.

We wanted the layout of the site to have a Google-like simplicity:

Help Screen

You can access the Help site in four ways:

1) Go to www.trintuition.com/help

2) Click on the button in the top left corner of your workBench screen that says “Help Building Projects”

3) Double-click on the “Quick Start Menu” in your Resource list

4) Click on the “Support” button on the TR website.

It would be very helpful to us if you would give us your impressions of using the new site and its materials, so that we can evolve and continue to improve it.

9
Responses

  1. slafaso says January 26th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    wow..you have been busy…can’t wait to investigate all the new stuff. thanks, Susan

  2. Ron says January 28th, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    Susan, let us know if your investigation sparks any ideas about new stuff to add or better ways to explain things. We’re hoping the videos are better than just text.

  3. slafaso says February 7th, 2009 at 10:26 pm

    I asked this once before but hoping you have added this feature. Can I post powerpoints on here yet?

  4. Ron says February 10th, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    Hi Susan,

    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. You can upload Powerpoint presentations to the workBench, drag them into the sitemap, and link to them. Depending on how they are saved, they’ll either open with their own reader or through the viewer’s Powerpoint application.

    If, however, you mean in the blog when you say “here,” I don’t think so.

    What are you working on?

    Ron

  5. slafaso says February 11th, 2009 at 12:01 am

    Two of my second grade Gifted and Talented students wrote a book called Good Night Waretown School, based on the Good Night Moon books. They decided to do the whole project in rhyme. The took photographs of people and places in our school and put it all together in PowerPoint. They recorded themselves reading the book, but they presented it live to all of the Kindergarten students in the school. It really was an amazing project. I would like to be able to share it with friends and family members.

    I will follow your directions and place it on our website. ~Fingers crossed~

    Also, we did a collaborative project with a first grade class in Virginia thanks to this program. They made a PowerPoint about their favorite places to visit in their city. My first graders put together a sight seeing tour of our very small town on the ocean. I would like to post both of those projects for others to see.

    I will stop here as I could go on forever. My K-3 students love to make PowerPoint presentations… and even more then love to stand with the clicker in hand and present.

    Will keep you posted how it all works.

    Thanks as always, Susan

  6. Ron says February 13th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Hi Susan,

    The projects both sound wonderful. My own children, now grown up, really loved Good Night Moon. I don’t see why the projects can’t be shared online through the workBench.

    Drag a project’s Powerpoint file onto the “Other” drop zone in the drag & drop uploader. Do that somewhere with a fast Internet connection, since Powerpoint projects are often very large.

    Refresh your resources, then drag the Powerpoint file from your resources into the Sitemap, not the Canvas, and link to it.

    If you have a problem, email one of the Powerpoint projects to me, and I’ll try. There is a limit on the size of files that can be uploaded. I think it’s 8MB. They’re not that big, are they?

    Once again, they sound like such wonderful projects for elementary kids.

    Ron

  7. slafaso says February 17th, 2009 at 6:52 am

    Thanks for your help as always…but to answer your last question, the are very big files…I tried compressing them but didn’t work. Any more advice? thanks, Susan

  8. slafaso says February 18th, 2009 at 12:25 am

    Hi Ron, I got one of the files compressed…I wish I could remember how, and I was able to link from my site to another site I have. A little round about but it worked.

    Thanks always for your encouragement. Will work on next one tomorrow.

  9. Ron says February 18th, 2009 at 11:38 pm

    Hi Susan,

    There is a kind of mismatch between big Powerpoint projects and the Internet. They weren’t designed to be pals. Big files download slowly online, especially if someone has a dial-up or other slow connection. Most Powerpoint projects could be done in the workBench - perhaps without some of the bells and whistles, but they would run faster online and without having to download first.

    All that aside, you do wonderful projects! That’s the main thing. Let me know if I can help.

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