How Rylan Created his Treehouse Investigation
Click on the steps below to see how Rylan planned for and composed his treehouse investigation, Weed's in Rylan's Yard.
Copyright 2005 Rylan Higgins
- Choose What Type of Treehouse You will Create
- Brainstorm and Plan
- Gather Information
- Get Media
- Write Rough Draft
- Plan Page Layout
- Step 1 Edit About this Page
- Step 2 Edit Page Content
- Step 3 Upload and Edit Images
- Step 4 Edit References and Information on the Internet
- Step 5 Edit Learning Information
- Step 6 Edit Attach to Group
- How Rylan followed the Learning Process Guidelines
Step 1 Edit About this Page
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: About this Page
Author, copyright, ToL use, and acknowledgements information must be completed and correct.
Rylan worked alone on his Treehouse about weeds, so he only listed himself as the author.
Rylan is happy to let people use the information in his Treehouse, however they want, so he chose "unrestricted use," which is option #3.
Step 2. Edit Page Content
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: 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.
How Rylan planned his treehouse
Before starting his Treehouse, Rylan knew little about weeds, so Rylan wanted to start with the basics.
- Rylan searched the University of Arizona's library online catalog and found a great book.
- Rylan found Internet sites about weeds
- The National Weather Service’s online site had really useful information about rainfall in Arizona.
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: 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, Adding Text , All the HTML You Need
How Rylan planned his treehouse
his goal was to have a Treehouse that read like both a story and an investigation: Rylan wanted it to be useful information and interesting.
Rylan planned his treehouse like Rylan would an essay.
- Rylan chose one type of weed, divided the page in to different sections and picked images that illustrated ideas in each.
- To capture the reader’s attention, Rylan started with an opening paragraph that Rylan thought would make people want to read more.
- Then Rylan relied on both his first-hand “yard adventure” and combined it with the scientific information Rylan found in his sources.
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: Media: Images At least 3 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
put in scanned image too
Though his “yard adventure” started with the idea that it would be interesting to explore weeds, Rylan was inspired to create and organize his Treehouse from the images Rylan captured with a digital camera.
The images Rylan found and created guided the early stages of his page design. Later, Rylan decided that Rylan needed some more images, because as Rylan came up with new ideas, Rylan also envisioned corresponding images.
Rylan first downloaded pictures from his camera to his computer, using the cable and software that came with his camera. Then Rylan went to Step 3, Add Images, and uploaded his images so that they were stored in the Tree of Life data base. Rylan was careful to remember the number associated with each image, which Rylan later used when adding the images to his Treehouse.
Step 3. Upload and/or Edit Images
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: References (Book /Magazines etc.)
Three book, journal, magazine, documentary film etc. type references. See editing help topic
Step 4. Edit References and Information on the Internet
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: References (Book /Magazines etc.)
Three book, journal, magazine, documentary film etc. type references. See editing help topic
How Rylan planned his treehouse
Rylan used the University of Arizona's online catalog to find books about weeds. Any public library would also work fine.
Once Rylan had three interesting reference Rylan went to the Reference editing page (Step 4) and type them in, just as Rylan would if Rylan were writing a bibliography for a report.
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: "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.
How Rylan planned his treehouse
Rylan have two "people references."
- his roommate was picking weeds the day Rylan decided to have weeds as his Treehouse theme. She and Rylan talked about the fact that she did not want weeds in our yard.
- Rylan also found landscaping companies in the phone book advertising weed control services, so Rylan call one of them to talk about how frequently the company had requests to get rid of weeds in people’s yards.
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: Information on the Internet
Five quality links with information on what one will find at each site. Links must have something to do with treehouse page content. These five Internet links must 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 topic
How Rylan planned his treehouse
Because there is so much information available on the Internet, Rylan wanted to make sure the sites for which Rylan provided links on his page were quality sites. For example, Rylan wanted sites that were regularly updated and preferred sites that were not commercial. Also, Rylan knew it was important to list all the sites that Rylan cited as resources in his text.
First Rylan found good web sites, which Rylan did by surfing the Internet and surveying sites that matched the topics Rylan was interested. Then Rylan went to the Internet References edit page (Step 4) and entered the URL and the name for each web site.
Step 5. Edit Learning Information
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: 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 topic.
The "Comments Field" helps people browsing the site find Treehouses that interest them, so Rylan came up with a concise, informative summary. Rylan typed his summary directly into the box labeled "Comments" field.
Rylan thought of his investigation as a story as well, so he checked off the Story treehouse box in the Treehouse Type field.
Rylan believes that his treehouse could appeal to and be understood by all levels of learners.
Step 6. Edit Attach to Group of Organisms on the ToL
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: Organism Names
Organism names are entered into the proper field and formatted correctly. Organism names are also featured in the treehouse text.
How Rylan planned his treehouse
Using one of the resources Rylan found online, Rylan was able to identify the weed in his yard by matching it with illustrations and descriptions provide by a weed expert.
Rylan entered the scientific name by going to the "Edit Attach to Group" page (Step #6) and typing it into the appropriate box.
Basic Treehouse Guidelines: Attach to Group
Attached to appropriate group(s) or organisms. See editing help topic and Attaching Your Work to a Branch or Leaf Page on the Tree of Life
How Rylan planned his treehouse
Once Rylan knew the scientific name of the weed in his yard, Rylan was able to learn more about it on the Tree of Life. Rylan found the branch page for the group of organisms to which this weed belongs.
To find the appropriate branch page, Rylan started from the Tree of Life homepage. From the Root of Life Rylan was unable to locate the organism on his page, so Rylan did a search using this organism's scientific name. ????POORLY WRITTEN Rylan WANT STEPS OF WHAT YO DID! Rylan was able, this way, to find it's group and the branch page associated with it.
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
How Rylan planned his treehouse
The initial idea to make a Treehouse about weeds came on a day when Rylan's roommate was working in their yard, which was full of weeds. Rylan realized that Arizona was in the middle of one of its rainy seasons and guessed there was a connection between the amount of rainfall and the sudden growth of so many weeds.
Rylan grabbed his digital camera and the ideas for the page started to flow. Rylan thought it would be interesting to learn more about weeds and present this learning process in a Treehouse.
Learing Process Guidelines
Basic Treehouse Learning Process Guidelines: 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.
How Rylan planned his treehouse
When Rylan had questions about how to use the Tree of Life Treehouse Editor for making web pages, the web site's support materials were useful. For example, the help topics for learning how to write HTML (computer code) helped him to learn some of the basics of that code. From reading these help topics, Rylan was able to create tables, lists and links to other web pages. (Learning this code is optional, however, given that the online Treehouse tools give builders the power to create these web page features without learning HTML.)