We would like to share this document with all of our users. Every now and then we get calls saying realsmart isn’t working properly for us. This is usually to do with the way things are set up at your end, this non technical document will talk you through everything you need to know in order to be up and running again in no time. Read on….

37signals  – the Chicago based makers of Basecamp and other great web-based software – recently wrote an article on smartassess for their Signal vs. Noise weblog.

The article, ‘Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: smartassess‘, covers how realsmart came about, why it came about, and looks at the fundamental philosophy at the heart of realsmart – the learner!

It would be fair to say that since the article was published twitter has gone through the roof!

“realsmart is based on self assessment rather than the teacher telling you what to do. Students own their portfolios and can build them at their own pace. It’s based on the idea that we learn as we reflect and record our learning, not when a teacher tells us we’re a B- and could do better. It tries to help us learn like we do in the real world i.e. on our own, with our friends to help us, and occasionally some feedback from an expert.” Gwyn ap Harri

To read more about why we do what we do, click here.

P.S. You’ll also get have a look around the office and try and guess who’s who!

When you create items, you can share them.

By sharing them, you are allowing other people to COLLABORATE through them. LEARN MORE

You can share items with another person, or people, or a group, or groups.

As a mentor or teacher, the simplest thing you can do is share an item with your class LEARN MORE

But there are more complicated things you can do. You can:

• Share an item with a number of groups and control how you see the results
• Add more mentors to your share, or share items on behalf of other mentors
• Allow other people to edit the actual item, and create items collaboratively
• Make an item publicly viewable without logging in to realsmart

And there are various ways to manage shares that you have already set up.

As a learner, you have to ask permission from a mentor to share an item.

realsmart makes it easy to learn through portfolios in three easy steps…

1. CREATE items
2. SHARE them with people
3. COLLABORATE through them

When you log in to realsmart, you will see the screen called ‘My Learning’. These are items that have been shared with you, or you have shared with others.

To create an item, go to the left of the screen where you will find the ‘CREATE STRIP’. This allows you to create any number of items.

LEARN MORE about CREATING the different items.

When you’ve created an item, you can share it with other people.

LEARN MORE about SHARING items.

Then, when you’ve shared an item, you can collaborate through it. How you do this depends on the type of the item that you have shared.

LEARN MORE about COLLABORATING through shared items.

For each item, collaboration is slightly different.

• rafl – Learners add evidence and self-assessment smilies to the criteria of each task. Mentors can add feedback to this evidence, and discuss this with the learners LEARN MORE
• rpassport – Learners add stories and stamp criteria in their pages. Mentors can add stories and stamps onto learners’ pages. Mentors can add feedback and milestone stamps, and discuss this with the learners. LEARN MORE
• rmap – Everyone can comment on each node of a map
• rweb – Everyone can comment on the bottom of every web page LEARN MORE
• rcast – Everyone can comment on every blog post LEARN MORE

As we collaborate through our shared items, we learn together.

There are five different items in realsmart. They are:

• rafl – self-assessed portfolios LEARN MORE
• rpassport – learning passports to show progress over time LEARN MORE
• rmap – graphical organisers to visualise your learning LEARN MORE
• rweb – collaborative websites LEARN MORE
• rcast – collaborative blogs and podcasts LEARN MORE

Once you have created any of these items, they are shared the same way.

Ok, so you’ve created an item, an rweb or rcast etc and you want to know how to get the students in your class to see it when they log in to realsmart.

Well, you can do this in a number of places…

• In ‘My Content’, click on an item and select ‘share’,
• Or when you are editing an item, or viewing it, by selecting the ‘shares’ menu and selecting ‘add new share’

You will then go to the ‘share an item’ screen.

Here, just select ‘Share this item’, then click on ‘group(s)’.

You will see a list of all your groups and classes in your school. You can either scroll through this list, or start typing the name of your group in the ‘search for groups’ box.

Select your group, then click on ‘Add >>’

The only other thing you need to do now is decide which ‘Activity’ to share your item under.

Click on ‘Activity’ and either choose an activity or subject name, or type in a new one.

Finally, click on ‘Finished! create my share!’.

Now, when your students log in, and when you look in your dock in ‘My Learning’, the item will be shared under the activity name you have chosen. You may have to ‘refresh’ your dock screen by clicking on the refresh icon.

Our new 0-6 month guide is designed to get you safely and successfully through the first 6 months of your realsmart life. It’s full of practical help and support, and will be your guiding hand to cope with the first few weeks and beyond.

Copies have been sent to all our schools and further hard copies can be ordered by contacting support@smartassess.com

To download a pfd of this guide click here

rafl embraces the principles of assessment for learning, accelerated learning, multiple intelligences, learning to learn, thinking skills and learning styles, and delivers effective personalised learning.

This is done through a collection of objectives and activities. Learners can track their progress visually, review guidance and also upload evidence of their learning. Mentors can then access a dynamic overview of their class’ learning.

To create an rafl, click the ‘rafl’ tool on the create strip, enter a title and click ‘Create my rafl’.

The first pie you see represents your unit of work; task pies can be added by clicking the plus icon. You can add up to 8 task pies. You have the option to add guidance to each pie to help the learners with their activity. To add task criteria to your pies, click the next plus icon. Here you will see the ‘I can’ ‘Because I have’ statements. To the learner this means, I can learn this, because I have done the following tasks.

When a learner completes a task, the pies capture their qualitative and quantitative success. The colours are in a traffic light system, green means they completed the task with no problems, yellow means they had some difficulty, and red means they found it difficult. Grey means the task is incomplete.

rpassport is a way to assess qualities, characteristics and habits of a learner and record their progress over a period of time.

To create an rpassport page, click the ‘rpassport’ tool on the create strip, enter a title and click ‘Create my rpassport’.

To add learning criteria to your passport page, click the plus icon. Your passport can have as little or as much criteria as you want. You also have the option to add guidance to each piece of criteria.