3.+iWeb

iWeb is the application we use to build our learning portfolios. It provides complete privacy, doesn't use any internet and so is quicker to edit and add to each page.(much quicker that this wiki) Files like jpegs and audio or movie files can be dragged and dropped onto the pages.

The focus for our learning portfolios is to share our learning and students can reflect on learning and make some future recommendations to further their learning. Research says that learners who reflect on their learning, learn more than those who don't. So keep learning in mind when we are doing iWeb work. In our review last year Jenny Brown made recommendations for us to develop a culture about learning similar to our You Can Do It culture. iWeb (and blogs) provide a place for us to establish this culture.

I was learning to ...........by.......... We learnt ....... When I learnt about....... When I learned how to ........ The part that was easy/hard.......... I need to....... Next time.... How are we learning this? Why are we learning this?

The webpages are created in iWeb and then published as webpages that can't be edited in their sites folder. Publishing should be done regularly. Photos of work samples and learning activities make great additions to these webpages so make sure your batteries are charged and the camera is out. Photos provide evidence of learning.

Beware of the 2 versions of iWeb - 2.0 and 3.0. The intel Macs and the laptops have 3.0 and once they use 3.0 can't go back to iWeb 2.0. If the students use iWeb 2.0 they can open it in iWeb 3.0 but they can't go bac to iWeb 2.0.

For iWeb use only it may be wise to nominate certain computers (all are numbered) and then they stay on there all year when doing iWeb.

iWeb 3.0 publishes differently to iWeb 2 also. In both versions you must select to publish to a folder and navigate to the students sites folder. If logged in this happens automatically. This is only needed to be done once then the publish can just be clicked on to update publishing. In iWeb 2.0 go to file and select publish to a folder. Version 3 has this publish site button iWeb 3.0 has the beauty of color coding pages that have been published and those that need to be published because changes have been made of it hasn't yet been published.

Once iWEb is published it can be viewed on any computer in the school without logging in. Open firefox/safari and in the URL put 10.150.160.24/~studentsfilename -cases code I think since it has changed. iWeb is great to show parents at interviews and at the end of the year we burn each students site onto a CD so they can take it home and show their learning.

iWeb misses being interactive and getting feedback from parents so make sure you give some feedback as you look at work done in iWeb. The whitboards are a great place to check out someone's iWeb work and talk about it. There are 2 things to talk about. The first thing is the learning and the second how the student has shared the learning. (make sense?, punctuation, spelling, layout, pictures, colors etc) We also use blogs this year on a class basis to gain some feedback about learning. This will be very reduced and only a few sentences per posting.