Welcome!
You will likely find it easiest to manage the creation and viewing of new content from the main VB-MAPP Users group pages. If you have joined the group, you should also be subscribed to the blog, and you should see that you have the role of “author”–please email the group administrator if you do not see this after going to the blog itself.
While we do love chaotic creativity in general, please follow these gentle suggestions to make everyone’s experience smoother, and please tag your posts using already-used tags/categories as much as possible rather than creating new ones:
Blog: Everyone can post to the blog–use this for posting news about what you’re doing, items you think might be interested to the group, and so on. A good way to get started is to post about your experience of using the VB-MAPP, especially if you are new to the tool–what did you find especially helpful? What was difficult or confusing? What kinds of issues did the tool highlight for you? Discussion of blog items is encouraged through the use of commenting.
You can post to the blog in two ways–one way is to post directly from the main group pages—below the group avatar, you should see an option to Add New Post, which will take you to the Dashboard and the post editing function. The other option is to go to the main blog page by going to My Blogs at the very top vb3 menu (next to My Account) and then clicking on the name of the group. When you get to the blog page, you will see a place to type in a new post directly.
Think of this as the group’s bulletin board by the water cooler—unlike many non-group blogs, the only thing on the group blog itself will be blog posts. Blog posts are excerpted in the Blog tab in the main group pages, and clicking on them will bring you to that post in the group blog itself.
Pages: Only group administrators and editors can create pages (like this one). These are accessible through the Blog tab in the main group pages or on the sidebar of the blog. These are more “static” documents–if you’ve got lots of lesson plans to share, data forms, and so on, this would be format to do it in. Contact the group administrator to be given editing privileges and guidelines for creating pages. If you’d like to share the occasional lesson plan, example of what you are working on at the moment and so on, you can easily do that by attaching a pdf file to your blog post instead (Add Media).
Forum: Use this for specific questions on using the VB-MAPP and VB programs in general. Please be as specific as possible in your subject line and tags, especially if your question is about a specific assessment item.
Wire: This is like the “Wall” in Facebook–use this for just general notices and comments you’d like the whole group to see. You cannot “comment” on Wire posts though, so in general for substantive information you should either post to the Blog or Forum.