06.09.09

Keys to Quia

Posted in Online Tools & Resources tagged , , , at 8:39 am by sblovett

I participated in a Quia workshop today, and here are some helpful and important tips regarding this online tool:

  • As a 4th grade teacher, it was easier for me to incorporate Quia than Moodle. Since I don’t teach an online course or publish my students’ grades online, Quia suits my needs and I found it more simple to use.
  • I didn’t have to create a “class” for my group of 20 students, but doing so assigns each student their own username and password. With a username and password, a student can track his or her own progress. I can see how this feature would be useful for teachers who work with several different groups of students or teach different sections of one subject area.
  • When I was ready to release activities to my students, I copied the URL for the activity, survey, or quiz and sent it to my students via email–without usernames and passwords. Sometimes we would complete activities as a whole group on the SMARTboard.
  • Teachers can assigned their activities a “secret word” that only their constituents know. This allows teachers to control who is taking a quiz or survey, for example.
  • Teachers can create class calendars through Quia, posting upcoming assessments or assignments through each class homepage.
  • I ran into some trouble at times when my entire class attempted to complete an activity wirelessly on the laptops. In one situation, each child took a survey, submitted his or her results, and then received an error message; I had to then re-administer the survey to each child using the hard-wired Desktop computer. It was time-consuming and frustrating for the children, but I’m wondering if it wasn’t just a wireless issue…
  • When a teacher has finished administering a survey, results can be exported into Excel spreadsheets.
  • When students have submitted their answers to a quiz, the results are tabulated and recorded for the teacher; teachers receive recommendations regarding those students who need to review the given concept based on their quiz scores. Quia also provides quiz score mean and median information.
  • The “Shared Activities” feature in Quia is wonderful! There are so many useful resources out there that teachers can copy into their individual Quia accounts and make their own. Teachers can even limit their search by looking for specific types of activities (jeopardy-type games, quizzes, word finds, etc.)

Here is a cheat sheet for understanding the types of activities you can create through Quia and an explanation of what I call the “control column”:

Learn more about Quia here.

Quia FAQs here.

06.01.09

iWeb in the Classroom

Posted in Classroom Projects & Activities tagged , , at 1:01 pm by sblovett

**Disclaimer: I am just a teacher sharing my LIMITED knowledge of using iWeb with students!**

One of my favorite ongoing projects this year involved using iWeb with my fourth graders. Thanks to Ty Richardson, I learned how to use the software last summer at The Coalition of Lighthouse School’s iSummit. As a newbie, I loved the similarity between iWeb and Keynote–especially the Inspector!

This year was the first time I have tried webpage design with students, and I couldn’t have asked for better software! I loved the ease of use and pre-made templates, and my students did as well. The children used their websites to post facts about themselves, list and even review books that they’d completed, journal about their book club experiences, share writing pieces, showcase projects, pose math problems, embed science and technology slideshows, and even add teacher-controlled widgets. The further we got into the school year, the more I heard, “Can I add this to my website?” I loved iWeb’s possibilities made my students feel like what they were creating in class was worthwhile and for an audience!

Here are some things I learned about using iWeb with students:

  • MOBILE ME: I used my own $99/year Mobile Me account in order to publish student pages. The students created unique webpages using iWeb on their individual laptops, but eventually I compiled all of the domain files, dragged them into the iWeb folder on my computer, and then published them all individually. It may sound like a lot of work to keep up with 20 domain files, but since the students’ pages didn’t contain any large media files, etc., it typically took less than 2 minutes to publish and re-publish student pages. Only once did I have 20 pages to publish at the same time (during the initial phase); from that point forward, students updated as needed–when they made changes to their pages. My $99 account provided more than enough storage for all 20 of my students to publish webpages and for me to publish my class webpage. I definitely plan to renew my Mobile Me membership!
  • DOMAIN FILES I taught my students that when building sites using iWeb, the computer creates a domain file. (I was taught that the homepage was called “index”; it’s different in iWeb).  I explain the domain file as a very important file that HAS to remain inside its iWeb folder. I tell my students that their computers don’t know which file contains their webpage information if they remove the domain file. While we had some mistakes throughout the year, overall, the transfer of domain files went fairly smoothly.  We followed this path to retrieve our domain files: Macintosh HD–User–Student–Library–Application Support–iWeb. The students were taught to attach their domain file in an email to the teacher when they were ready to re-publish their webpages, but they were reminded never to remove the domain file from its folder; we simply copied and pasted. If a student did accidentally remove the file from the iWeb folder, s/he had to not only put it back into the folder, but also had to double-click to re-launch the domain file in iWeb on his/her laptop. I explained this process as our means of reminding the computer where to look for the domain file.
  • NAMING DOMAIN FILES: I found that I had to be explicit (when are teachers NOT?!) when showing my students how to name their iWeb pages. They needed to rename their pages at the “site” level, or iWeb became confused by numerous files named “site”; when renaming, we used the students’ names and the word “site,” so files ended up looking like this: JerrySite, Jerry Site, or Jerry’s Site. Neither apostrophes nor spaces caused publishing problems. I noticed that when a student bypassed the basic domain file that iWeb created for them and renamed it with his/her name, the file extension changed to “sites2.” This is also the case with my own domain file, and it posed no problems for us. See image:

  • BACKING UP FILES: My students backed their domain files up to our school’s server, so they can continue adding to and changing their webpages as they grow and gain technology skills. I hope to see them grow as 5th grade iWeb users! They also dragged the domain files to their flashdrives as a backup to the backup.  :-)
  • PUBLISHING: When it came time for me to publish or re-publish student webpages, first I dragged student domains into the iWeb folder on my computer. From there I had to double-click individual students’ domain files and click “publish” in the lower left-hand corner of iWeb once they had launched.

When the publishing process was complete, I would see a pop-up window that read something like:

I would choose “Visit Site Now” to copy the URL for each student’s webpage, and then I would re-launch my own domain file in order to paste the student’s URL into the “All About Me” page of my website under the appropriate student’s name. I chose to handle it this way because I only had one Mobile Me account. My students’ webpages were simply linked to one of my pages:

Their URL paths looked like this depending upon how the students renamed their domains at the site level. This student’s domain was renamed “Davis Site.” Notice how the space was replaced by an underscore when published.

Of course with the use of iWeb this year came many, many conversations about copyright, what is and isn’t safe to publish on the Internet, appropriate content, characteristics of effective websites, color schemes, font choices, spelling and grammar check, etc.  We even took a field trip to the Apple Store at a local mall to showcase our creations and get feedback:

While my students and I have A LOT to learn, we really enjoyed using iWeb this year!