Quicklinks: Read Around the Planet website and CAPspace login.
It’s that time of year to start thinking about your participation in Read Around the Planet 2008. Keep up to date by subscribing to this blog or checking back often. Here’s the news for today.
Verification is now open. Here’s where to start.
- Login to Collaborations Around the Planet and set up your profile.
- Go to My Settings. Under About Me add a description. This helps us know if you coordinate VC. If you do, then we “promote” you so that you have the power to manage My People & My Equipment. We are doing this as fast as we can after you update your account.
- Go to My Settings, Personal. Check off the areas you’re involved in so others can find you when looking for partners.
- Go to My Settings, Picture & Websites. Update these areas too if you wish.
- Go to Search to find friends & click Add Friend and click Home to accept friend invitations from others (if applicable).
- Go to My Projects and check off big projects you’ve participated in already. (This is how you get stars & badges next to your name).
- View your profile under My Profile.
- Set up Relationship Tree for Read Around the Planet projects. This replaces the mess of connecting buildings & people that we had last year. We hope this will work much better.
- Click Admin, My People. (You will only see this after we’ve promoted you to have this level of access. So make sure you update your paragraph under My Settings so we know that you need to be promoted. If we still don’t get to it after 48 hours, please email sue@twice.cc and let her know that you need coordinator access.)
- Search the cities you support to find your people in the system from last year (or by name). You should only add the people who are DIRECTLY under you.
- For example, you might have a tree structure like this:
- Me
- My District Coordinators
- My Building Coordinators
- Teachers
- My Building Coordinators
- My District Coordinators
- Me
- The tree structure should match however support works in your area. It might be flat, with everyone under you, or in a tree structure as shown.
- So you might add district coordinators under you; they add the building coordinators under them, and finally the building coordinators add teachers under them.
- Note: At this point, set up relationships for videoconference coordinators in a way that reflects the support structure in your area. When teacher registration opens Dec. 3, you can decide if you will have them get accounts or whether you will register for them.
- Next. Start adding your equipment. Watch the little overview videos.
We look forward to your participation in Read Around the Planet this year. Thank you in advance to all the coordinators & techs who make this project a great experience for students & teachers!
I teach a combined class of Grade 4 and Grade 5 students. We are part of a 1:1 tech project…each student has a laptop to use throughout the school year.
A match with any age, any country would be great!!!
Hello Dianne,
we are also running a 1:1 laptop project in our district for grade 5/6 and 7 students. Our focus is on writing and literacy. I would be most interested in coordinating the match up of some of these classes.
Thanks
gord.smith@pallisersd.ab.ca
Thanks Gord & Dianne. Feel free to create additional projects with each other. I know Gord is familiar with the Read Around the Planet process. Dianne, you’ll need to start walking through the process described on this post and also on the Read Around the Planet website.
Hi Janine & Sue,
Being a provincial coordinator in Alberta, the reality is that only some of the Alberta sites need to connect to RAP partners through our MCU. Some school jurisdictions in the province have the ability to make their own Internet calls.
I have regional coordinators in the VC Regional Leads Network, but some of these Regional Leads work with districts who can connect directly to RAP partners while others work with districts who need to connect through our MCU.
I’m trying to get my head around how to do the organizational structure for myself, given that some may need me/our MCU and some will not.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Danny
Danny – I think part of your challenge is you are both coordinator and verifier.
Think like a coordinator first. Whoever needs your help and bridging through Alberta Ed should be listed under you in My People. Probably most of them can add their own equipment. Everyone else who connects on their own doesn’t need to be listed under you – but could be if you want to keep tabs on them. Maybe this is a better way to think of it – set up “My People” however your “people” structure works. Then probably most of your regional and local coordinators can “add My Equipment” for themselves in the system. They can indicate there whether it needs to connect through the MCU or not.
Then think like a verifier. You’ll be checking these endpoints off in the system. So at that point you can catch any errors made in how the units were added to the system. At this point, you look over their work, test with those you need to, and check them off.
Does that help?
Janine
Hi Janine and Sue,
In my position, I am both coordinator and tech coordinator for schools in several districts. Since I use the same portable equipment for all my schools, I need to set the RAP schedule. I have already added “My People” that participated last year, but will I be able to create accounts for those who are new to RAP this year so I can handle their registrations? Or will they need to create their own accounts so I can add them under me? If possible, it would be more efficient for me or my assistant to get them into the system. Thanks for all your hard work on this!
Kay
Hi Janine & Sue – would you suggest we encourage our teachers to register themselves and plan to do most of their communicating with their partner class through CAP? I’m wondering if our teachers will be more likely to use CAP for that process or just use email. If that’s the case I’m tempted to just plan to have those at the top of the tree do most of the registration and then encourage teachers to use CAP to search for more collaborations throughout the year.
thanks!
Kim
Kim and Kay,
I think your questions are fairly similar. The big question is – should teachers login? If you do registration for your teachers, there is no need to have them login or be under “My People.”
My People is intended to organize the support structure for people who have accounts in the system.
If you will register for your teachers, then they will not have an account and they will not show up in My People. You will register for them and the registration will be in your name with their contact information attached to their particular match request.
This way you can still do the registration and the teachers will still have each other’s email and phone to communicate about their project. Kim, the teachers should talk to each other with phone or email after they are matched, just like before.
The directory side of CAPspace is intended to increase the usability of the data entered for RAP, but certainly isn’t essential to the RAP process. Does that help clarify?
Janine
Thanks, Janine. That does clarify things for me. I was under the impression that teachers would need to have an account to register.
Hello,
I will do the registration for my teachers. I’ve set up my profile and added my equipment.
Now, how do I register for my 4 different teachers?
Helen – you can’t register quite yet. See the blog post from today. Your equipment has to be verified too. So you have to wait for your verifier to contact you, set up a test, test, they check you off, and by then the coordinator registration tools should be ready.
Janine