Presenting Nicenet.org

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Presenting Nicenet.org

• How to create use a web-based discussion board
  and course website
• By Cherie D
• Great Teachers Workshop,
• Summer 2003

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What is it?

• A free web-based resource
• An easy way to have a class website with no
  cost to you or your students and which can be
  developed over the course of the semester
• (Okay, they are accepting donations!)

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Stats on usage from the Nicenet home page

• How many people have used their account?
• In the last 10 minutes 57
• In the last 24 hours 3,846
• In the last week 13,528
• In the last month 35,483
• Since January, 1998 456,071
• How many new user accounts were created?
• In the last week 1,803
• In the last month 9,854

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More statistics from Nicenet

• How many classes have been used?
• In the last week 2934
• In the last month 5819
• How many new classes were created?
• In the last week 373
• In the last month 1,669

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Nicenets philosophy

• Nicenet is a volunteer, non-profit organization
  dedicated to providing free services to the
  Internet community.
• Nicenet's primary offering, the Internet
  Classroom Assistant (ICA) is designed to address
  the pedagogical needs and limited resources of
  teachers and their students.

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What can you do with Nicenet?

• Send and receive personal messages
• Post messages to a class discussion board (called
  conferencing)
• Post links to web resources (and organize them in
  categories)
• Post announcements, schedules, and simple
  documents

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What can you do with Nicenet, cont.

• If you are in a computer classroom, it is another
  way to use the technology there.
• If you are not in a computer classroom, it can
  also be an effective tool. You may want to take
  your students to a lab to sign them up, and then
  let them find computer access on their own, or go
  back to the lab from time to time.

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Why use it?

• Provides a simple tool to communicate with
  students (personal messages)
• Can create a feeling of community through the use
  of the discussion board (conferencing)
• Can be used, updated, and maintained from
  anywhere you access the internet

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How can it benefit your class?

• It gives students an easy way to contact the
  teacher with questions, concerns
• Teachers can post new information between
  classeschange in due date, a new external link
  to check out, other announcements
• Postings on the conferencing area can count as
  short journal entries can promote interaction
  between students and teacher

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Are there any limitations?

• You cannot post a powerpoint presentation
• You cannot attach a document
• HOWEVER, its free!
• You can post an external link to that powerpoint,
  it is posted on the web elsewhere

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My experience with Nicenet

• Ive been using it for the past three semesters
  in most of my face to face classes
• Ive put together ten separate class websites
• Students love it! Most of my students did not
  know they had an email account from the college
  and havent used it. This bypasses that they can
  access it from anywhere.

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My experience, cont.

• I think it creates community and gives my
  students an additional source of information
• They like the links area for students who do not
  have much experience using the internet, it is
  especially useful since they dont have to
  remember the URL or type it in
• They also like the schedule/announcements feature

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My experience, cont.

• Ive used half a dozen different systems (for
  online discussion boards) and this one is easiest
  to set up and use by far
• It is better to make students responsible for
  signing up than the teacher having to do all of
  that work, as some systems require

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Students comments

• This discussion board has really helped me to
  gain confidence in using the web for a lot of
  different purposes instead of just research.
• This website has really been a big help to me in
  that area though because through this site I can
  do comp 1 at home too. I think it has great value
  to the class overall.

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Students comments, cont.

• Nicenet has helped me in conversation out of
  class, and helped me realized that technology has
  advanced, which in turn was helpful towards
  writing about our class theme of
• technology in society.
• The Nicenet think is pretty cool too.

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Students comments, cont.

• I have enjoyed using this website and discussion
  board during class and also outside of class. I
  was able to access nicenet from home, work or
  school. And it eliminated all the paperwork that
  goes along with journals.

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How to set up your own class website in Nicenet

• Step by step instructions, with print screens

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First, go to nicenet.org

• http//nicenet.org
• Then, select Create a class
• Next, fill out the form (give your class a name,
  choose a username and password for yourself, etc.)

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Nicenet Home
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Top part of form
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Bottom part of form
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Next, you will get a class key(a combination of
letters numbers)
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My new class!
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What if you forget or lose the class key? Go to
the class administration link.
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Adding students
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How do your students get entered?

• They follow these steps
• Go to the website
• Select Join a class
• Enter the class key
• Fill out the form (username/password). Remind
  them to write this info down!
• They will be added to the list

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How can you check to see if they have joined yet?

• Go to the class members link on the navigation
  bar
• You will see a list of the students and their
  email addresses, as reported on the form

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So far I am the only member of Summer Training
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Here is the class list from one of my Spring
classes
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A neat feature if you click on a students
email address, it opens up a new message (outside
nicenet PM)
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You can get information ( members) from the
class administration link

• Class Information
• Class Key 2660Z7S33
• Members of this class 21
• Logins 157
• Conferencing Topics 12
• Conferencing Messages 2172
• Documents 2
• Link Topics 8
• Links 21

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Caution Anonymous students

• If a student does not fill out the complete form,
  listing his/her first and last name, you will see
  something like this on your class list
  Anonymous462544
• Send a personal message to that person and ask
  him/her to go into the edit user profile area and
  fill out the form

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Edit user profile
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How can you learn more about how to use Nicenet?

• Go to the link for FAQ or Frequently Asked
  Questions

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FAQ
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Features of Nicenet

• Looking at the various parts of the ICA (Internet
  Classroom Assistant) website

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Notice these things about the home page!

• Your name appears in the upper left hand area of
  the screen
• The days date time are in the upper right hand
  area
• The name of the serviceInternet Classroom
  Assistant appears as well. Nicenet is geared for
  education!

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Notice these things, cont.

• Summer Training (name of class) at the top
• A navigation bar (Army green) with links to
• Conferencing (discussion board)
• Link Sharing (place to list web sites)
• Documents (place to enter text/copy paste)
• Class Schedule (place to add updates,
  announcements)
• Class Members (list of students email addresses
  they reported on the form)

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Notice these things, cont.

• Personal Messages View Send
• Classes Join Create Drop Delete
• Class Administration
• Edit User Profile
• ICA FAQ

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Sample Class--Home
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Home page alerts

• You are alerted if there are any new messages,
  links, or discussion postings
• If you scroll down the screen, you will also see
  a list of the events scheduled

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(Schedule)Week at a glance
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Conferencing the discussion area
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Now you can add content!

• Heres how to do it

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How to add events or items to the schedule area
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Add new event name, dates (if desired) and
description
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Creating a new topic in conferencing
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Click on add new topic
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Name the topic (be consistent)Posting
1/Introductions
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Write the prompt (give details)

• Tell us a little about yourself. Write a
  paragraph or so that tells us why you are at ___,
  what you're studying, and what
  you plan to do after you leave here, as well as a
  little something about your
  family and hobbies. Later, you will go back and
  respond to one person's posting, asking a
  question, pointing out something you may have in
  common, etc.

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One topic list of postings in summary format
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My writing prompt
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One students response
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Link sharing (grouped in categories)
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Adding a link
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Link topics

• It will be helpful to your students if you group
  similar links in categories.
• These could fit the major units of your course,
  for example.
• They might also simply reflect the type of link
  (research tools, writing tools, etc.)

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How to add a link name, URL, and description
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Editing a link if you make a mistake, you can
edit it
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Document area
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Adding a document
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How to add a document

• Add a title
• Add text one of two ways
• --copy and paste from an existing Word document
• --type text directly into the box (html tags are
  not necessary but can help format)
• --click on add document button

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Sample document
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Class schedule
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Add new event
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Personal messages area
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Sending a message select the recipients
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One option Send a message to everyone in the
class

• A great idea a way to send a reminder to
  everyone
• Students tend to read the personal messages on a
  regular basis, especially since they are told
  they have a new one when they log on and go to
  the home page

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Another way to use personal messages

• Ask students to send you a message with their
  topic choice for the big research paper
• Ask students to send you a message reporting on
  their progress on a project
• Ask students to send you a message at midterm
  doing a self evaluation of performance in the
  class