Basic Treehouse Content Guidelines

• *Guidelines with an asterisk are suggested but optional.
• These guidelines follow the steps for building a treehouse as presented in the Treehouse Editor
• Be sure and view the basic treehouse assessment rubric on the Teacher Resource page.

BASIC TREEHOUSE CONTENT GUIDELINES

About this Page

Author, copyright, ToL use, and acknowledgements information must be completed and correct.

Information

• Information should be presented in a clear and engaging manner.
• Information should be gained from a variety of sources.
• Information should combine student ideas, experiences and thoughts with factual information gained from scientific observations, the Internet, books and other sources.

Text and Layout

• Spelling and grammar should be as perfect as possible because the treehouse is meant for publication.
• The layout and design elements (color etc.) should help communicate information clearly and consistently.
• Text and images are well placed and work together to communicate information.

See editing help topics, Using the Easy Editor, Transfer Text to the Easy Editor, Treehouse Design

Media: Images

• *At least three images total, including at least one student-created image.
• Images should illustrate page content.
• Accurate copyright information must be posted with each media file (Copyright owner, date, acknowledgements, etc.).

See editing help topics, Adding Media, Multimedia Reference

References (Book /Magazines etc.)

*At least three book, journal, magazine, documentary film etc. type references. See editing help topics. These are suggested guidelines, however, if you use information from a particular source (book etc.) in your page, the standard we require is for you to cite the source of your information.

*"People References"

• *Student discusses topic with others and gains their opinion or expertise. The person spoken with does not need to be an expert.
• *Students can do things such as create survey questions to ask people in their neighborhood.

Information on the Internet

*At least three quality links with information on what one will find at each site.
Links must have something to do with treehouse page content. These are suggested guidelines, however, if you use information from a particular web site in your page, the standard we require is for you to cite the source of your information. These three Internet links should be entered in the Information on the Internet Section, but if students would like they may also put hyperlinks in other sections of their page. See editing help topics

Learning Information

All fields are complete. In the "Comments Field" the student adds a brief summary of what someone could learn from their page. See editing help topics

Organism Names

*Organism names (scientific and common names) are entered into the proper field and formatted correctly. Organism names are also featured in the treehouse text.

See editing help topics and Help with Scientific Names.

Attach to Group

Attached to appropriate group(s) or organisms. See editing help topics and Attaching Your Work to a Branch or Leaf Page on the Tree of Life

BASIC TREEHOUSE LEARNING PROCESS GUIDELINES

Brainstorming and Planning

• Students create a treehouse plan or a brainstorm web.
• brainstorm web or treehouse plan shows that student(s) planned ahead for each section of their treehouse.
• If students are partnering, web shows plans for each partners involvement

See Building Steps, step #2

Working Together

If students partner, the partners communicate effectively and share equally in the work of creating the treehouse.

Following Guidelines

Student does not disrupt class and listens to directions.

Learning Independently and Solving Technology Problems

• Student reads directions and help topics, and uses support materials to work independently.
• If something goes wrong student can figure out something else to work on.
• Student asks questions that demonstrate that they have tried to figure things out on their own first before asking for help.