StudentGroupProjects

toc =Managing iWeb Projects with Groups of Students=

If you want to have groups of students work on iWeb projects to post on your LMSD website, you will need to carefully manage the student workflow to properly organize and post the student iWeb projects. This tutorial shows you how. See a sample site at: http://www.lmsd.org/staff/lmsdteacher

Download a PDF copy of these instructions:.

Overview
Determine how many student iWeb projects you will have on your site. For example, you might have three groups of students working on different aspects related to an over-all class project. Each group could create a different iWeb project for their aspect of the project. We will use this as our working example.

Will this project be all you have on your LMSD website, or will it be just one aspect of your site? Let’s assume it will be just one aspect of your site. The organization of your site, then, might look like the following: You will need a folder for your project and a sub-folder for each group (A, B, and C in this example). If you deveop other projects, you just need to add a new project folder. This depicts the end result of your work and the work from your student groups. Now let’s take the project development one step at a time.

Step 1: Student Group Design Work in iWeb
When you or your students work in iWeb to design a web site, you are developing and saving a single “domain” file on your computer. This domain file is actually a special packet containing all the components of that site – text, graphics, media, layout, etc. When you save your iWeb design work, you are updating this domain file (or packet). The domain file itself, however, cannot be uploaded to a web server since it is not in the format required for displaying web pages on the Internet.

This requires an additional step -- to “publish” iWeb work to a folder that contains all the proper files in the required organization to allow users to access the web site correctly. We recommend that you and your students “publish” to a local folder. This allows you or your students check the local files in a web browser to be sure everything works as intended. Once everything checks out, the local files for each group are copied to a set of folders you set up on our teacher laptop (Step 3) and make final links before copying to your iWeb website directory (Step 4).

First, prepare the folders and files for each group to get started. You will need a new, unused iWeb domain file for each group. You can get a copy of an unused domain file in the iWeb folder in the Tech Staff Development folder on the fsstaff shared directory. Set up the following folder structure for each group: You will want to designate a student laptop for them to consistently use where this folder structure resides, but you will want to periodically make a backup of this folder so group work is not accidentally lost.

Students simply double-click on their Domain file to work on their website design in iWeb. They must NOT open the iWeb application first, however. By opening the application from their domain file, they can be certain they are opening their own work each time. At this point, their Published Local folder will be empty.

Step 2: Student Group Work Published Locally
When a group finishes designing or when they need to check their work in a web browser, they must “publish” their work to a folder – the “Demo Published Local” folder in the example above.

Click the File menu, then “Publish to a Folder…” and navigate to the group’s Published Local folder.

The results will look something like this:

Before students completely finish their site, however, they need to include a link back to a main project page that you will create in your iWeb domain file. You need to determine what the name of that page will be and let each group know so they can include the link back to that page. Here is the format of that link:

[|http://www.lmsd.org/staff/][|//lmsdteacher//][|/Site/][|//Curriculum_Project.html//]

This URL is the main project page for the LMSDteacher demonstration site. Your URL will substitute your site name for “//lmsdteacher//” and the name of your project page for “//Curriculum_Project.html//.” Be careful not to forget the /Site/ portion of the URL. It won’t work without it.

NOTE: web page names and URLs cannot have spaces in them. Typically, the underscore character is used in lieu of a space. That is not apparent in the URL above when it appears as a live, underlined link.

Students can publish locally as often as they like, however, they should completely replace all files each time.

Step 3: Aggregate Group Work with Your Teacher iWeb Files
Be sure you have back up copies of all group work as well as your own iWeb development folders before putting the files together. Work only with copies of the completed files so you can reconstruct your work if necessary.

You will want to have a web page on your teacher site as a main project page to link to each group’s project. This is an example in the LMSDteacher demonstration site:

http://www.lmsd.org/staff///lmsdteacher///Site///Curriculum_Project.html//

You can also use this page to introduce the purpose and/or topic of the project and how it fits into your curriculum. Dress it up with a photo or graphic or two.

The links to each group project will be in the following format:

http://www.lmsd.org/staff///lmsdteacher/////demoproject/////GroupA///

This is the link from the LMSDteacher demonstration site project page to Group A’s pages. You will need to substitute your site name for “lmsdteacher” and the name of your project folder for “demoproject” and the name of GroupA’s folder for “GroupA” in this example. Group names might be descriptive of the aspect of the project each group worked on.

The photo below is how your aggregated files might appear on your laptop. Note that teacher files are highlighted in red and the three groups are blue, green, and lavender. Your teacher files will vary depending on what you’ve included in your site, but the files in red will most likely be there. Of course, you may have more than one project page if you do more than one project with student groups.

This is an overall representation of what your local aggregated files might look like:

Step 4: Copy Files to Your Teacher Website Directory
You can easily create the necessary folder structure ahead of time in your iWeb website directory. Here’s how: Mount your iWeb website:

• You must first have an iWeb website. If you do not, you can request one through the HelpDesk. • From the Finder’s “Go” menu, select “Connect to server…” • Enter the URL for your iWeb website in the following format: http://staff.lmsd.org/YOURWEBSITENAME as shown below. Your website name will probably be the same as your network username. • Click “Connect” and enter your username and password. • Your iWeb website will mount on your desktop like any other server directory. • You can do this whether you or on the LMSD Network at school or working at home.

Copy the contents of your aggregated website folder from your local laptop to your website directory. Be careful to maintain the folder structure, especially if you need to update your own website files or the files for one or more of your groups.

Check your website by connecting with your browser to check all the links. If you need to adjust anything, go back to Step 1 to make the design changes in iWeb using the domain file, then re-publish locally (Step 2), aggregate the files again (Step 3), and upload the revised files (Step4).