I met with Catriona at McNeill to plan a "CSI-like" project in cooperation with two science classes. The goal is to have students create a website, where each student contributes a piece/page and the combined effort results in a "crime solving" website designed to show their learning.
FIRST CLASS MEETING
My first step, after creating accounts for the students, was to meet with the classes and go over the "ins and outs" of Richnet. I used the site I had created earlier for McRoberts Day. (Here's the link.)
Once the students logged in with their accounts and submitted the "Acceptable User Agreement", (I showed the students a version of the AUA, with the important points highlighted so they were fully aware of what they were agreeing to) we had them change their password to something they would remember (ie a Facebook password or Hotmail password) and then personalize their "resumé" with fun picture of a hobby or interest they have. (Students were reminded that all content needs to be "Granny Safe"!)
SECOND CLASS MEETING
In a second session, I had the class apply for individual web accounts. The plan is to use their Richnet accounts to build their project webpage.
(See sample screen shot below)For each group, students created a common welcome page in each of their accounts, and then added their individual content page. The pages of the other group members were added as "bookmark" links created in the Bookmark folder on Richnet, and then dragged into the Webpage folder. Once the group members agreed on the order of their pages, visitors to any of the group members' site would see the same set of links, in the same order, with a common welcome page. (Last year, each group created their pages in a common Richnet account, but there were problems with work going missing or being deleted inadventantly. The advantage of creating the project in individual Richnet accounts and then linking them, is that each student is solely responsable for his/her individual page and doesn't have to worry about "cyber-vandalism" by a disgruntled group member.)
