Building
Learners
Project

I have recently been in touch with other members and am starting to do some projects with them. I am glad I joined this program. I love learning and doing “new” things. Thanks!! Sue

I have just shared a sample Quick Project and project template for a Visual Poem Quick Project. You can find it one of two ways:

1.  I have shared them with all the project members within the workBench (go to Manage My Resources  to see them under Shared With Me and click to Make me a Copy).  Feel free to change the versions I made to better suit your needs with YOUR students (ex. change the requirements, etc.)
2. You can view the sample project itself  from this URL: http://tf.trintuition.com/cshively/visualpoem.  Feel free to share it with students (or not).

Here is the background  and some context for this  Quick Project idea:

• Students can write their own poems and add visual images to go with them, either in groups or individually. If you have studied an important historical event, why not ask your elementary student to create a visual poem about it.
• As your class studies poetry and literary devices (imagery, motifs, etc.), have them create a visual poem with annotations to show their understanding of the poem’s imagery. If you use poems from the public domain, you can include the ENTIRE poem in the project. If  the poems you use are newer and still under copyright, have students select portions of the poem under “Fair Use” of copyrighted material to combine with images in their visual poems. This would be a terrific activity for students to explore the visual imagery and themes within song lyrics as poetry, as well.
• Younger students can use classic poems with more concrete imagery to visually illustrate the metaphors and similes they read.
• With elementary classes, do a whole-class visual poem as a message to send (by emailing the URL) to another class in another part of the world (another Building Learners class?) or to your class parents, summarizing what you have learned about animals, Thanksgiving, family, community, or any curriculum concept. This is a wonderful way of culminating a unit and sharing it proudly.
• Gifted students would respond well to the open-ended challenge of visual poetry at ANY age

Have other ideas? Share them here as comments!

I have just finished a quick tutorial ( using the workBench, of course) on using images from the Flickr photosharing site in your workBench projects. You can see it two ways.

1.  I have shared it with all the project members within the workBench( go to Manage My Resources  to see it under Shared With Me and click to Make me a Copy).  Feel free to change the version I made to better suit your needs with YOUR students ( ex. change the requirements or permissions for WHO is allowed to search on Flickr- see below).
2. You can view it from this URL: http://tf.trintuition.com/cshively/UsingFlickronWB . I will also add it on the sidebar of this blog for quick access by you and your students when you forget how to use it!

Some thoughts about using Flickr images:

• You can teach much more than technical how-to when you use images from Flickr. You can also talk about giving credit to those whose work is shared there. Note that this How-to shows you how to ONLY use images where the photographer has granted Creative Commons licensing. That means that you are using it with their permission for a specific type of use. Teach ethical use of web resources, even if you just think aloud as YOU do it in front of little ones.
• You may want to limit student access to Flickr, since the images are shared by the general public and can include content NOT appropriate for the classroom. We know that middle schoolers will immediately search for body parts or naked women. Avoid this by adding Flickr images (the SAME way as the tutorial shows) to My Resources, then sharing them with your class. At the very least, spend some time talking about appropriateness and consequences of poor judgment by students using Flickr in class. Many teachers believe it is better to teach and guide than to completely protect and avoid. It is up to you.

Can I upload and play a PowerPoint presentation on my site?  If yes, can you direct me to the directions or explain how to me?  And, if you can show one, can you show more than one?

Over the summer, we created a powerful new set of tools for managing student and school accounts. You can access them by clicking on the “Userlist” button in the workBench, or by going to http:tf.trintuition.com/mypage and logging in. Even if you haven’t added students, you can see the data for your own account. In additing to being able to see, sort, and edit all kinds of information, the new tools enable you to access and open all student projects.

On the TR blog, there’s a new post about workBench projects as reading lists, logs, and reviews ( http://blog.trintuition.com/?p=143 ). If you’re interested in trying out one of the options, mention it in a comment or post here, and we’ll give you more details and any support you need.

To make getting started with the workBench as easy as possible, we’ve begun creating video tutorials. Nothing quite matches actualy seeing something done. It’s a new initiative for us, so we would appreciate any comments you might have about what’s helpful in the videos and what mght be improved.

If you have a moment, take a look at several. They’re at the top of the Canvas Tutorial menu page  ( http:www.trintuition.com/tutorial/tools ).  By Wednesday (10/8), we should have two more videos up about linking.

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

I received this email and am sharing the exchange for the benefit of all:

Candace, I don’t know how it happened but I lost all my bookmarks and history…i am sure i will fix it, but I also can’t seem to get into either of my sites I made here. Can you help? http://tf.trintuition.com/slafaso/wes  is my computer lab page http://tf.trintuition.com/slafaso/gifted  is my Gifted and Talented website… and I want to share them with my students asap.  also, i couldn’t log into the whole site…said it didn’t recognize my name????

 My response: 

Do not panic. I think this is a combination of errors. I believe the address for your gifted page as you shared it on the blog ishttp://tf.trintuition.com/slafaso/GATEIt is working. I would double check that you are accessing trintuition from the special TF address  they set up for this project (linked from the sidebar of  the BLP blog for your convenience—click on “Launch the workbench” at the right or bookmark this link: http://tf.trintuition.com/

I suspect that you were trying to log into TRintuition with the www address (which would not “know” you). If you log into the workbench from the link above/at the right of the BLP blog, you can check on the URL for your computer lab again. I suspect that your recollection of the URl may be slightly off. 

FYI to ALL: We tried to make this blog your entry point for everything you do so you will see any new messages as you “pass through.” The link to the workBench from here is a special area of the workBench specifically for this project! NO www.

Candy

I am new to this project and need to get started.  I would really like to print out the step by step instructions in your tutorial.  Is there a way to do this?

Thank you

KH�

I just tried to have a class sign up so they could begin working on pages for our project, but when I click on “Have your students join you”, or when we go to trintuition.com/apply all we get is a message that says “oops . . . Sorry. There is no such group.” I guess I missed something in how to get students involved. I would appreciate any help you can give, as the students were all excited to get started and very disappointed when things didn’t work. Thank you.

I have started building my project called Project Pumpkin Power.  I want to add a data page that each of the 5 classes can add their data.  Can I add a table?�