Creating+a+Virtual+Notebook

Use of virtual notebooks allows students a great deal of room for creativity, freedom, and responsibility. Virtual notebooks allow students to access their notebooks from wherever the web is available to them and to enhance their work using multimedia resources. The use of virtual notebooks also provides for easier editing of notes, increased opportunities for collaboration among students, and creative exercises and expressions of individuality. We have found success with using wikispaces as the forum for virtual notebooks. What you will do is set up your own virtual notebook that you will use for this course and can then use as a model for student notebooks in your classroom if you choose (or you may decide to create a model virtual notebook for the sole purpose of walking students through the set up of their own). Keep in mind that you will then be able to use, with any modifications you see fit, these directions to guide your students through the creation of their own virtual notebooks.

**Setting up a Virtual Notebook **
1. Establish a site for your notebook: Keep this wikispace open and open another tab or window and go to wikispaces.com and get started by creating an account with a username and password, as well as by providing your email address. You will need to toggle back and forth between these directions and your new wikispace, so make sure to keep both open and be ready to bounce back and forth. Explore the tutorials wikispaces has to offer and take a virtual tour of setting up your wikispace. For your virtual notebook, please name it by using your first initial, last name, virtualnotebook - for example, if your name is John Smith you would name your wiki JSmithVirtualNotebook and your site will wind up being www.JSmithVirtualNotebook.wikispaces.com Make sure that you select Protected (free) and K-12 Education (Primary and Secondary) as shown below:

Here are two examples of student virtual notebooks and an example of a teacher virtual notebook that was set up as a model to help guide students through the creation of their own: students:

Your home page should be a little bit about yourself, personalize it by clicking the Edit button and exploring what the toolbar offers. We will provide a brief tutorial shortly, but see what you can decipher on your own. Try to use at least a few of the features in the toolbar, including importing an image by using the File button and creating an external link using the Link button.
 * 2. Create your home page:

3. Using the toolbar: Once you click Edit, the toolbar will appear. As you move left to right along the toolbar a variety of options are available... **
 * From the left, the icons start with the opportunity to Bold, Italicize, and/or underline your writing using the typical symbols for those options.
 * The fourth icon from the left is for the Tex Pallet: [[image:Text_Pallet.PNG width="34" height="44"]] - by clicking this icon you have a great deal of flexibility in manipulating your text. The best way to go about manipulating your text is to write in the normal format, then highlight the text, click the Text Pallet icon and choose the size, font, and other characteristics you would like. Make sure you save your work regularly.
 * The fifth icon, which by default says Normal, is for changing text to make headings of different sizes.
 * The sixth and seventh icons from the left are for numbering or bulleting lists, similar to those options in Microsoft Word.
 * The eighth icon is for creating a horizontal line across the page.
 * Next we have the Link icon, which allows you to create links to websites. When you click Link, the first option is for a Wiki Link - which allows you to link to other pages //within// your wiki. In most cases what you will want to use is the External Link tab. In both cases you have the option to write in a link text - which is the wording that will appear on your wiki, not the actual web URL address for the link (which is what I used to create the links above to the student and teacher notebooks). So let's say you wanted to add a link for Google. You would click the Link icon, then the External Link tab, type in whatever wording you would like, such as "Google search engine," in the Link Text field, then type in or copy and paste in the actual web address: www.google.com in the Address field. You then have the option of clicking the box to enable New Window, meaning that if someone were to click on your link for Google, google.com would open in a new internet window, as opposed to navigating away from your wikispace. Your screen should like something like the following: [[image:Link_demo.PNG width="259" height="192" align="center"]]


 * Next to the Link icon is the File icon, which will allow you to upload and embed image and text files into your virtual notebook. When you click on the File icon, you will have the option of inserting a file or an external image. __For inserting a file__, the first step is to upload the file by clicking on upload on the right side of the page. Once you have uploaded your document to your wikispace, you will then be able to insert it into your notebook wherever you would like. Try this using the Word document that you created to complete your 21st century classroom brainstorming at the start of today's session. The process is: click Edit, then File, then upload, then locate your document, select it, and click upload. Return to your notebook home page and click Edit,then File, and your document should be listed on your screen. Select your document by clicking on it, then click upload and it should embed your Word document into your notebook home page. You can always delete it and insert it elsewhere later. __For an external image__, you should open another tab or window and find an image that you would like to embed in your notebook. Once you have found an image you should simply copy the URL address. Return to your notebook and place your cursor in the spot where you would like to import your image, click Edit, File, External Image, then paste in the URL address you copied, click Load, then double click on the image in order to insert it into your notebook. Try this process with an image of your choosing: perhaps an image related to you and your interests, or perhaps something related to your vision of a 21st century classroom.
 * The next toolbar option is the Widget icon. This contains a vast menu of resources for enhancing your wikispace. Getting to know all of these options, or even some, will take some time. We encourage you to experiment with as many of these as you can make time for. Some of the highlights we would like to point out are the use of the reference feature for footnoting your work, inserting an RSS feed that can keep an updated news feed on your wiki from any number of sources (CNN, etc), embedding a map, a video, or a slideshow (we will work on developing a Slide in another lesson).
 * The last icon on the toolbar is for inserting a Table into your wikispace.


 * Now that you have //some// facility in working with the Edit toolbar spend another 20 to 30 minutes editing and enhancing the home page of your virtual notebook. **
 * Next, please click on the Discussion tab on the home page of your virtual notebook (realize that there is a different Discussion tab on each page) and create a new post entitled "Use of a virtual notebook" and write a reflection summarizing what you have just learned and discussing the ways in which you envision using virtual notebooks in your classroom. **


 * 4. Now that your home page is looking good, let's explore adding pages to your wikispace. Locate the words New Page  on your home page, which is a link and will look something like this: [[image:New_Page.PNG width="100" height="74"]] click on them. You will be brought to a screen that allows you to create a new page. For the purposes of this exercise, please create a page entitled Marking Up a Text . Unless you so desire, do not worry about adding any Tags and simply click create. We will not add content to the page right now, we will come back to these new pages soon. Please also add a page entitled <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Wordle <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">, a page entitled <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Slide <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">, a page entitled <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">VoiceThread <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">, and a page entitled <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Researching <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">. We will add other pages as well, but this is a good start. The left side of your home page should now have all of these pages listed separately as links. **


 * 5. Below the link for New Page is the link for Manage Wiki, which is the next place we are headed. Click on Manage Wiki and take a look at some of the options therein. What you should make sure to become familiar with is how to manage your Pages and Files under the Content heading, how to manage your members, permissions, and inviting people to join your wiki. Take a few minutes to do the following: **
 * ** Invite at least two people to join your wiki. **
 * ** Change the permissions so that even non-members can post to your wiki. **
 * ** Change the name of one of your pages - you can change the Slide page to Slide Presentation. **
 * ** Go into some of the options under Tools and take note of the options available for Notifications and Wiki Statistics. **
 * ** Go into Look and Feel under the Settings heading and customize your virtual notebook's theme and colors. **


 * You have now set up a great start to your virtual notebook for this course! You also now have some expertise in using wikispaces, which will help you set up a wikispace for the lessons you will create as part of this course to use with your students in the future and to help students set up their own virtual notebooks when that time comes. **