Zoho Notebook as CMS, Part 2
This is the second post in a series of posts about moving from Blackboard, our current CMS in the district, to Web 2.0 sites. The first post, Moving from Blackboard to Web 2.0, Part 1, is about how I used Zoho Writer, Notebook, & Show to compile my course content into one place. This post shows you how I’m using Zoho Notebook as a writing portfolio for students and as a way to collect assignments from them.
As mentioned before, Zoho Notebook allows for users to create a notebook that can include a number of different pages. Each page can be created adding either a sheet, writer or web page. Sheet pages are spreadsheets, writer pages are word processor pages created in Zoho Writer, and adding a web page embeds the site into one of your notebook pages.
You can also add a blank page which then can have numerous elements added to it and can be edited just like a Writer page. The picture to the left shows all the options available to build a page. I like how the Add Audio and Add Video options automatically build a player for the media right into the page, and add HTML makes it possible to embed just about any kind of widget from anywhere on the web. The add video option requires that you paste the embed code from the site where you posted the original media, meaning you can’t upload video directly to the Zoho site. There is, however, the option to upload audio files to Zoho, although I couldn’t get it to work for me. Best bet is to upload the media elsewhere and add the URL to file into the page. It creates a nice player for you so the file can be played right on the page.
Students are required to sign up for Zoho and create a notebook. With each major assignment they are required to create a page in the notebook and post the assignment in the page. The notebook will then have tabs for each of the assignments, and thus be a collection of their work. Student can then “share” their notebooks with me, which allows for me to view and grade their work. Zoho gives you two options for sharing, and students need to be sure to share using the Read/Write option. That way I can add comments to their notebook and help make corrections.
This brings me to one of the things I’m not too excited about in Zoho notebook. There really isn’t a good way to add comments to a page. You literally have to add a text box over the original content, which makes both the note and the page difficult to read. Currently I’m downloading the pages that need to be graded, grading them in Word using the tracking and comments features, and then posting the graded work back on the students notebook as an attached file. This only works if the student used a Writer page to post the assignment. If he/she used a blank page and added text, then I have to cut and paste the assignment into Word.
I’ve also had a little trouble with the links I get in the notices from Zoho. Whenever someone shares a notebook with you, Zoho sends you an email alert with a link to the notebook. The link takes me to my Zoho Notebook, but the shared notebook never displays. I can see it, but I have to click on my Shared tab for it to show up. All the notebooks shared with me are compiled in one spot, and I can open then all in tabs in my Zoho site.
Here is a shot of 4 student notebooks tabbed across the top, and a view of the first student’s notebook with her assignments tabbed on the right (click to enlarge). This makes it easy for me to click on a name at the top and then review his/her work by clicking on the tabs on the right.
It’s not even close to being perfect, but surprisingly it’s working well. We’ll see how the students are liking it after their midterm poll. Until then, we’re moving on to the next step in our move from Blackboard to Web 2.0. – social network as CMS.
