Schoolnurse’s Weblog

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     Yesterday was a day of frustration for me, I was trying to get technology to work for me, and it was not cooperating. Some folks had the same frustration with their presentations. Sometimes life feels like we are swimming upstream, which brings me to Task Stream. I got on to the Task Stream site and have been working on finding my way around. I made some mistakes, and I thought that maybe I could be of help to my fellow classmates. Task Stream looks looks a powerful tool, but I found it intimidating. There are some tutorial manuals, but I could not find them readily. The site uses frames, and there is no option to remove frames, so I cannot even give you specific sites to go to for help.

     I had already signed up for Task Stream and paid for three years, and you have to start by doing that. When I log in I am on a page called Programs and Folios. Make sure you go to “self enroll” and put in that number that was given to us. This is where I wasted time. You have the ability to see course resources and send assignments, but you cannot see these unless you enroll. On the Programs and Folios page you will see, My Programs/DRF and below it you will see M. S. in Instructional Technology Overview and Resources: View. That takes you to a page where there are tutorials on using Task Stream. I built my web page, and moved everything from my wiki or blog as best as I could. Be mindful that Task Stream has a limit of 900 characters per page. A space counts as a character, so if you single space, you can get more on a page. I had to split some of my wiki pages into two Task Stream pages. I put some assignments on my web page, but the exemplar is considered a keystone assignment, so it has to be submitted via the called “Directed Response Folios” or as it is seen around the site DRF. The area called “Directed Response Folios” has a blank outline of all the keystone assignments we will submit over the months to come for all courses. I submitted my exemplar, but be warned. Once you hit “submit” the work is locked, you cannot take it back. I found out the hard way when I went to tweak my exemplar. I clicked on it to open it about 20 times, and realized that there was a little tiny picture of a small padlock next to my file for a reason. I have been relaxed about tweaking assignments on my wiki and blog, fixing typos, adding sentences, and rephrasing things. You cannot do that here.

     Here is a link to a tutorial on Task Stream Beginner’s Guide for Students and this is the form we need filled out for our field experience Field Experience Documentation Form. Student Guide to Submitting Work is the tutorial I wished that I had found before submitting my work into Pete. Any tips for using Task Stream you all want to share with me please do so by comments or email. We are all swimming in this together, sometimes I feel like there is so much information that I am going to drown, lets help each other get to shore.