WISE Instruction

I. Browse WISE Project

1. Open WISE website, preferably in Firefox or Chrome.

2. Explore sample WISE units in the public library through the following steps.

(A). Choose one unit that falls under your content background, preview it. Make sure you spent some quality time on the individual steps (note that some steps may take some time to load or need some plug in to open if it involves some animation/simulation). Take notes on features or steps that interest you or bother you.

(B). Discuss the following in the Discussion Board on Blackboard: (a) pros and cons of using an online platform like WISE; (b) how the units you just explored embody the “Knowledge Integration” framework that guided the development of these unit activities: “Students grapple with multiple, conflicting, and confusing ideas about science. WISE curriculum and technology development is driven by a rich research tradition that has shown that instruction is most effective when teachers use students' views as a starting point for scientific investigations. When teachers and instructional materials guide learners as they articulate their repertoire of ideas, add new ideas, sort out their ideas in a variety of contexts, and make connections at multiple levels of analysis, they develop more nuanced criteria for evaluating ideas, and, ultimately, formulate a linked set of views about scientific phenomena.” (link to quote source) (c) ideas you generated from browsing WISE units that you think you can incorporate in your final project.

II. Create Teacher’s Account & Setup Classroom Run

(some of the instruction may be on an earlier version)

1. On the WISE homepage, below the sign-in field, click Create WISE Account. Follow the instruction to create a Teacher Account. Your username is generated by the computer automatically. Record your username and password.

2. After login using your new teacher’s account, click Browse WISE Projects. (Under Quick Links on the left panel, or Management tab on the top).

3. Pick a project that you intend to run with your class, click Start New Run besides the project title.

4. Follow the guideline to complete the setup. At the end of the setup, you will receive a Student Access Code in red text (write it down for future reference; read the explanation of how to use the code).

5. When you finish the setup, enter My Classroom Runs page. On this page, you can also see the student access code (You can also enter this page by clicking Grade & Manage Classroom Runs under the Quick Links panel, or going to Management -> Grade & Manage Classroom Runs tab)

III. Create Student Accounts

1. Log out of your teacher’s account.

2. Now create a fictitious student account, note that you need to use the Student Access Code. The process is similar to creating teachers’ account (in a real class run, you may ask students to complete this step to save time).

3. Record the student’s account and password. (You are able to change students’ passwords under the My Classroom Runs page in the teacher’s account).

4. Login with the student account. The student will see the project(s) the teacher has chosen (see section II).

5. Click Run Project, you (as the student) will have the option to run the project by yourself or work with a partner(s) (if there are more than one student in the class). Answer some embedded notes in the project.

6. When you finish, Sign Out.

IV. Grade Student Work

1. Login WISE using your teacher account (the default page is your most recent classroom run).

2. If you want to grade a different project, go to Management->Grade and Manage Classroom Runs

3. On the right column of the classroom run page, under Grading & Tools, you will see a set of options for grading. Try them out.

4. Log out the teacher’s account and switch to a student account to see what a student would see.

V. Customize a WISE Project

1. Login WISE using your teacher’s account.

2. If you have a project you own and you want to modify it, you may skip to step 4.

3. Go to the WISE project library, select a project that you want to own or customize, click Copy.

4. Under Source tab, click Owned (My Custom Projects), you will see the project you just copied.

5. Click Edit. This will direct you to the WISE Authoring Tool (alternatively, you can always enter the authoring mode under Management->Launch Authoring Tool).

6. In Authoring mode, the icons on top allow you to Open Project, Create Project, Preview Project, Manage Art/Files, Edit Info, etc.

7. On the page, you can change Project Title, decide how to number and label Steps (by Activity or Project), and change the Logging Level.

8. Then you can Add Activity or Add Step. In WISE4, a step is the smallest unit; an activity may consist of several steps.

9. You will see a list of the activities and steps of the project. You can explore these in the Authoring Tool. Now, see if you know the answers to the following questions:

· How to change project title, insert a new activity/step, change order of a step?

· How to insert a new picture, a youtube video, an animation?

When you add a new step, you will be asked to Select Step Type. (you can click Step Type Description to check the meaning of different types of steps). The most commonly used types are as follows (explore and figure out what they are): Challenge Question, Reflection Note, Questionnaire, Multiple Choice, Drawing, MySystem.