In the spirit of the conference's theme, we are using software that allows authenticated users who have been designated as "Contributors" to submit contact. Most contributors will probably choose to submit a story, the most common type of content we have on the site. If you find that you often run out of handouts at your presentations, here's a good place to upload them. You might also want to add a story with links to other sites or create a poll. Since most content types also allow coments, people can add their comments about your presentation (choose "Subscribe" in the submission menu to get updates on what is added to what you have written)

You begin by finding "Create content" in your menu. It should be near the top.

Once you select the "Create Content" item by clicking on it, you will be offered a menu of content types. When in doubt, choose "Story".

Here's a list of some of the others that you might choose to submit:

Assuming you have chosen "Story", you will have a window with many more choices open to you. Let's discuss the most important ones. First, there is the editing window.

Most of the choices will be familiar to you. You can mouse over the others to see what they are and if they might be helpful to you. For example, if you are pasting something that you created in Word, you can choose the icon with a W at the bottom of the list. This will clean up the code that Word creates. If you are comfortable with HTML, you can input in HTML. You don't have to make any choices if you don't want to. The default settings will work just fine! If you are putting in weblinks, just type the link ( www.catesol.org ) and it will become a link. The same is true of e-mail addresses: eslbruce@ gmail.com

One of the most powerful features of the software that the site uses (Drupal) is its ability to allow you to create categories and index items in multiple ways. It's also one of the trickiest parts of the software. After you finish writing your story, you will need to make a number of choices that will determine where the story shows up on the site. The first choice is Categories. You will need to click on the Categories item below the editing window to see your choices:

There are so many choices we had to cut and paste three images to demonstrate them; you will need to scroll down to see them. Not all choices will apply to your presentation. The items that have open windows allow you to select more than one item in that category. Select as many as apply to your story (Hold down your Control key on the PC or the Command Open Apple on the Mac). In the example on the right, Marsha Chan's presentation is on Friday, it is addressed specifically to a community college audience, it involves technology, and it's a computer lab demonstration.

If you want to add an image to your story, you can upload it using the Attached Images item.

Subscribe to your story so you can see what comments others might make. Please notify me, eslbruce@gmail.com if you find inappropriate content or comments on the site.

If you have a unique name, you can use the URL path setting to create a page for your presentation. The window for that looks like this:

For example, an exhibitor might want to create an address for their company. To make things easy, let's agree to use your presentation type and then your unique identifier. For example, Ms. Chan might choose:

exhibitor/Sunburst

or

presenter/Chan

If you don't make a choice, the software will create a page with address like: catesol2008/node/203

Menu settings are another tricky area in Create content. Choose the Menu settings item to see your choices:

Select the parent item for your content. Exhibitors choose "Exhibitors"; other presenters should choose the type of presentation they are doing: Demonstration, Paper, Panel, etc. Menu item names are not necessary since your content can be found in many ways if you selected the appropriate categories.

The final choice is Publishing Options. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ITEM!

Promote to Front Page means your item would appear on the opening page of the site. Click the box to turn that off unless you have something urgent that everyone at the conference needs to see. E-mail me if you do: eslbruce@gmail.com

Sticky at the top of lists means your item would go to the top of the page with items that have been selected the same way. Please unclick the box unless it's appropriate for it to appear at the top of the page.

Assuming you want your story to appear on the site, leave Published checked. If you are editing a previously created item, choose the Revision option. It will save the previous item in case you decide that you need to go back.

Finally, click SUBMIT. If you don't, all of your work will be lost.

I will review all content daily to make sure that it's appearing in the right categories. If you have problems, please e-mail me.

Thanks for being part of the community and enriching the CATESOL 2008 experience.