Building a BookWidgets community with folders and groups
Lucie Renard —
Looks like we have been working this month! After last week’s smartphone release, we have some extra good news. You are now able to organize your widgets in folders and find some other inspiring widgets in groups.
BookWidgets folders
The days of endlessly searching for widgets in a long list are behind you. Create folders and drag and drop the widgets you want to add. It kind of works the same like Google Drive.
Just click on the cog wheel and add a folder. Don’t forget to name the folder. You can now easily move widgets into the folder. Just drag and drop them, or move multiple widgets around.
BookWidgets groups
On top of that, we have added the option “groups”. From now on, you can collaborate with other teachers in a group. You can choose if those teachers are observers, contributors or administrators. Observers can only view widgets and use them, contributors can also add other widgets in the group. Administrators can do both and invite other people to that group.
A group can be public, closed or secret. Think about the groups in Facebook. It’s based on the same prinicple.
Public groups are visible for everyone that has a BookWidgets account. This helps to build an online BookWidgets community. By making your groups public, everyone can get ideas from other teachers. You can let everyone contribute. You could create a public group called “Geography learning materials” or “Math 9th grade”. That’s up to you.
Closed groups are more private. Here, everyone can see that the group exists and see what kind of widgets are in it, but they can’t open them. However, they can send a request to be part of the group. This is the ideal setting if you’re collaborating with a small number of colleagues, for instance within the same school.
Secret groups are - yes, you guessed it - secret. No one can see this group exists. You, as administrator, can invite people to this group.
Structuring groups
As you can see with Facebook, some groups get so many contributors, that everything dissappears and an endless feed of information. That’s why it’s handy to make folders in your groups and name them. A good structure will keep your group user-friendly and clear.
Inviting teachers
Creating a BookWidgets account is free. This means that it doesn’t matter if you invite teachers who don’t use BookWidgets yet. They will be able to participate in groups with a free BookWidgets account. As they create their account, new users get a free trial of 30 days. This means they can see, use and adjust widgets in a group (if you enable them). After the trial runs out, they can only see and use the widgets, but not adjust them.
