Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Noteshare . . . Handing-In Assignment

Ann Bell of Oxford Hills Middle School came back enthusiastic about using Noteshare after attending a workshop in Auburn with Barbara Greenstone. She has successfully created and shared over the local network her notebook on matter. Anne sees great possibilities with this tool in her daily classroom work. But she had a question that has me stumped:

Is there a drop-box function in the Noteshare book that allows only the teacher to see the completed assignment that has been completed and dragged (using folio) or copy/pasted by the student? She would prefer not to use the email route because of the distraction it might cause. Of course, the old "sneaker net" using a thumb drive could be a solution . . . but is there a simpler way? I vaguely remember hearing that there was a way during trainings, but after going through the help menus, couldn't seem to find the answer. Barbara? :) Anyone?

Middle School Noteshare Workshop Dates
Earlier Posts Relating to Noteshare
Noteshare Links at Learning in Maine Resources Wiki

3 comments:

  1. Currently, there is no concept of a "CLOSED" notebook that behaves like a private drop box. However, it's a feature we'll certainly add to our future list of enhancements.

    Notebooks can be read-only and they are password protected but not limited in terms of access to other pages and sections.

    The workaround in this scenario would be to have each student maintain a notebook of their class work on a central server or system running/hosting shared notebooks 24x7. That's now possible with NoteShare Server which is being released next week.

    Scott

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  2. Kudos to Anne for trying to make this work in her classroom!

    I have to admit that I think of NoteShare more as a collaboration tool - for situations when you want kids to look at other kids work and give them feedback.

    Having said that, I understand that there are times when teachers want to use a shared notebook as a quick way to collect student work. We've worked out a procedure for doing that.

    The teacher first creates a notebook with a section for each class. (We like to color code these so students easily recognize their section.) The teacher then shares the notebook, selecting Viewers Can Edit, Turn Pages for Viewers, and Auto-Edit Mode. Before inviting students to open the shared notebook, she turns to the divider page (click on the tab) for the section for that class.

    The students open their own notebooks to the page where they have done the assignment, naming the page with their names or initials. They open the shared notebook next to it and drag the folio tool from their homework page and drop it on the section divider page of the shared notebook, thus creating a copy of the page in that section. They can't see other students' work because they cannot turn to another page in the shared notebook.

    This, of course, is a procedure that would have to be modeled and practiced in order to work smoothly.

    I hope this helps.

    Barbara

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  3. Thanks, Barbara . . . I've forwarded this solution to Ann. I'm not sure I completely understand it yet, but will take some time to review it and then work with Ann.

    I do agree with you on the benefits of collaborating. We all need audiences for our efforts.

    Thanks again . . :)

    Jim

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