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GENERAL
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LIKING
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WHAT IS “LIKING”?
Liking is simply a way to show your appreciation for things here on thesmartteacher.com. Think of it as a virtual bouquet of flowers. As a registered user, you have the ability to “like” any discussion or resource created by other users. You can like (or unlike) items by clicking on the thumbs up button associated with each item. Once you like an item, the button will appear pink; otherwise, it will appear gray. And, much as you may be impressed with items you’ve created, you cannot like them.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I LIKE SOMETHING?
Liking something will trigger a couple significant happenings:

  1. The total number of likes an item has is visible to all users—the more engaging or helpful an item is, the more likely it is to be liked. If you want to give an item your approval, click the like button—it will let other users know it’s worth taking a look at.
  2. When a discussion or resource is liked, the owner of that item receives a boost to his or her statistics and overall user rating. Statistics help users to identify active, engaged and helpful members of the smARTcommunity. So, when you like an item, you are giving that item and its creator credibility. You can find your Statistics within the Control Panel.

KEEPING
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WHAT IS “KEEPING”?
Keeping is a step up from liking. It shows that you’re ready to take that next step toward commitment, perhaps even love! In other words, keeping is a way to appreciate and also to save the items you find most helpful. As a registered user, you have the ability to “keep” any person, discussion or resource. You can keep (or unkeep) these items or people by clicking on the star button associated with each one. Once you keep an item, the button will appear pink; otherwise, it will appear gray. And, as much as you may be impressed with yourself and items you’ve created, you cannot keep them.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I KEEP SOMETHING?
Keeping something will trigger several significant happenings:

  1. Anything you keep will be saved in your personal Keepers within your Control Panel. This will help you to keep track of people, discussions and resources you find particularly helpful.
  2. In the News Blast within your Control Panel, you will automatically receive updates for all items and people you keep. For example, if you keep a discussion and someone makes a post on that discussion, you will receive that update within your News Blast; if you keep a person and that person puts a new resource on the exchange, you will receive that update in your News Blast.
  3. The total number of keeps an item has is visible to all users—the more engaging or helpful an item is, the more likely it is to be kept. Keeping is the ultimate compliment—it says, “You had me at hello!”
  4. When a profile, discussion or resource is kept, the owner of that item receives a boost to their statistics, overall user rating and, we imagine, ego. Statistics help users to identify active, engaged and helpful members of the smARTcommunity. So, when you keep an item, you are giving that item and its creator credibility. You can find your Statistics within the Control Panel.

CONTROL PANEL
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The Control Panel is your virtual purse or man-bag, the place where you will find all of your personal belongings: your Profile setup options, your Kept and Created items, your News Blast and your Statistics. You can access your control panel by clicking on MY CONTROL PANEL in the top right-hand corner of any page on thesmartteacher.com.

CONTROL PANEL TABS (Personal, Organization, Contact, Teaching, Favorites, View)
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WILL ALL USERS SEE THE INFORMATION ENTERED INTO MY PROFILE TABS?
No, other users can only see your Public Profile. By using the Setup tab, you have the ability to specify which information is displayed publicly.

WHAT ARE FAVORITES?
Favorites are just a fun way to share your personal artistic preferences with other users. Any favorites you pick will automatically show up on your public profile.

I DON’T SEE MY FAVORITE ARTIST/ARTISTIC MOVEMENT/MEDIUM HERE. CAN I ADD TO THE LIST?
Potentially, yes. Under each list, you’ll find a link called “Don’t see one of your favorites?” There, you can submit for consideration an artist, artistic movement or medium that you feel deserves a spot. After reviewing and verifying your submission, we’ll make a call on inclusion, but we can’t promise we will add everyone. In other words, as impressive as your Uncle Pete’s oil landscapes of the New Jersey turnpike are, he may not be a sensible choice for our official list of artists. That said, you can include in your bio anyone or anything you’d like, so Uncle Pete’s still got a shot at making your profile!

WHAT IS THE VIEW TAB?
See your world through the eyes of the masses! If you click on the View tab, it will take you to your personal public profile page (as other users will see it). You can modify what other users will see by using the Setup tab.

SETUP
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WHAT IS THE SETUP TAB?
The Setup tab will allow you to select the items you wish to hide from your public profile (some items are automatically either publicly displayed or hidden).

CREATED
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WHAT IS THE CREATED TAB?
Any item you create—discussion or resource—will automatically be stored here for easy access.

KEEPERS
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WHAT IS THE KEEPERS TAB?
Any item you keep—person, discussion or resource—will automatically be stored here for easy access. Unkeeping an item will remove it from your Keepers tab.

STATISTICS
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WHAT IS THE STATISTICS TAB?
Statistics will help you keep track of your activity and impact on thesmartteacher.com. Think of this as your living baseball card.

WHAT DO THE DIFFERENT COLUMNS MEAN?
Column #1: List of the different statistical categories we will track for you.
Column #2: Actual accumulated numerical totals for each category.
Column #3: Your rank in each category in relation to other users who live in your state (or country, if outside the US). You will be ranked only in relation to users who share your profile type (Art Lover, Art Organization, Art Educator). For example, if you are an Art Educator living in California, this number indicates where you rank among all other Art Educators living in California.
Column #4: The smARTrank shows where you rank in each category in relation to all users with your profile type (Art Lover, Art Organization, Art Educator). For example, if you are an Art Organization, this number indicates where your organization ranks among all Art Organizations.

WHY EVEN HAVE STATISTICS?
Reason #1: For fun. We just want you to be able to keep up with your interactions on this site.
Reason #2: For transparency. We want you to be able to see the impact you are having among other users.
Reason #3: For quality. Statistics are generated by interactions and contributions to this community. More significant and helpful contributions give bigger boosts to a user’s statistics. For example, the user who creates two resources that nobody keeps or likes will not be rated as highly overall as the user who creates a single resource that is kept by 34 users and liked by 25 users.

HOW IS THE OVERALL RATING CALCULATED?
It’s complicated. Not quite Good Will Hunting-complicated, but complicated enough to require too much space to explain completely. Suffice to say we’ve developed a formula that includes a combination of all statistical categories. The higher the number, the more active, engaged and helpful the user.

WHO SEES MY STATISTICS?
Just you. Using your Setup tab, you have the ability to show or hide certain stats (that is, your overall ranking and your overall rating) on your public profile.

NEWS BLAST
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WHAT IS THE NEWS BLAST TAB?
Your News Blast will automatically show updates related to all items you keep or have created (and custom messages from The smARTteacher). In addition, you will be notified here...
Whenever someone keeps you, a discussion you’ve created or a resource you’ve created
Whenever someone likes or comments on a discussion or resource you’ve created
Whenever someone comments on a discussion or resource you keep
Whenever someone you keep creates a resource or discussion

SMARTDISCUSSION
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CREATING A DISCUSSION
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HOW DO I CREATE A DISCUSSION?
We like keeping things simple. So, when you are on any of the smARTdiscussion pages, you will see a CREATE NEW button at the top-right of the page on the “smARTdiscussion” header. Click it, and ba-da-boom—you can begin creating your discussion. Once you finish creating your discussion, it is immediately stored in your control panel under “CREATED” and is available for other users to discover and revere through browsing.

WHY DO I CLASSIFY OR SPECIFY MY DISCUSSION?
Great question! Classifying your discussion as a conversation, question, group or blog will help to identify for other users the purpose of your discussion. Depending on which discussion classification you choose, you will be given different options to get more specific. This is just a way to help categorize discussions in a way that makes browsing a little easier for all users.

Let’s say for example you have a question about where to get acrylic paint online at the best price—you would want to classify your discussion as a “question” and specify it as “supplies.” Or perhaps you want to gather users who are from Michigan—you would classify your discussion as a “group” and specify it as “location.”

BROWSING DISCUSSIONS
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HOW DO I BROWSE DISCUSSIONS?
If you click on “smARTdiscussion” anywhere on the site, you will be taken directly to the discussion browsing. If you are already on any of the discussion pages, you will see a BROWSE ALL button at the top-right of the page on the “smARTdiscussion” header. Click it to begin browsing. The smARTdiscussion homepage will automatically display all discussions starting with the most recently created.

There are basically three ways to browse the discussions:

  1. Dropdown options: The dropdown options allow you to search the discussions based on Classification, Type (specific) and Status. You can use the dropdowns in any combination you’d like (you can make selections from none, one or all).
  2. Keyword search: The keyword search will check our discussion database for the EXACT word or phrase you type in (if you search for “5th grade classrooms,” you will only see discussions with that exact phrase, you will not see results that include only “5th grade” or “classrooms”). So keep your searches short and sweet. The keyword search can also be used in conjunction with the dropdown options.
  3. Sorting: Beneath the search bubble, directly above the results, you will see a dropdown for sorting options. You can use these sorting options to order the results by certain criteria. The results are automatically sorted by Creation Date (most recently created at the top). If you would prefer to sort by the number of comments a discussion has received, select “Number of Comments” from the dropdown and voila—the discussions with the most comments will rise to the top of your results.

SMARTEXCHANGE
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CREATING A RESOURCE ON THE EXCHANGE
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HOW DO I CREATE A RESOURCE?
If you are on any of the smARTexchange pages, you will see a CREATE NEW button at the top-right of the page on the “smARTexchange” header. Click it to begin creating your resource through the following five-step process:

Tab 1: Summary—This tab allows you to summarize and choose the type, title and audience of your resource. Each of these is required for resource creation and will help other users find what they are looking for more easily. We both know your resource is awesome, so make sure to create a descriptive title and summary so others can easily recognize it!
TAB 2: Features—This tab allows you to select artists, movements, elements, principles, media and subjects that are included or related to the resource you are creating. None of these fields are required, but all are used for browsing.
TAB 3: Plan—This tab allows you to list length, objectives, materials, procedures, assessment, related resources and additional notes. The more specific and detailed you are here, the more likely this resource is to be Kept and Liked—so keep the quality high. This step is probably most helpful when creating a lesson plan, but it may be used in the creation of other resources as well.
TAB 4: Standards—This tab allows you to select standards associated with your resource (based on the grade level/audience select on tab 1). This is not a mandatory step but is very helpful to other teachers submitting and presenting lesson plans.
TAB 5: Attach—This tab allows you to attach any sample images or artwork associated with your resource. This is also the place where you can attach related documents (for example: practice sheet, test, project brief, rubric).
TAB 6: View—This tab allows you the opportunity to take a break mid-resource-creation in order to see what your resource will look like to other users. The view tab will only be available you've saved changes on one of the other tabs.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I SAVE CHANGES?
As soon as you hit SAVE CHANGES on any of the above-listed tabs, your masterpiece, er, resource, is immediately stored in your control panel under CREATED. It will not be viewable to the public until you decide to publish it.

HOW DO I PUBLISH A RESOURCE?
You can publish (or unpublish) a resource by clicking the Eye icon on the top left corner of any of your created resources. As soon as you click to publish, your resource is available for other users to discover and revere through browsing.

CAN I EDIT OR DELETE A RESOURCE I HAVE CREATED?
Yes, of course! You can edit or delete any resource at any time. To Edit, just click the EDIT button on the top left corner of any of your created resources. To Delete, just click the purple X icon on the top left corner of any of your created resources. Be aware that when you delete a resource, anyone keeping it will also lose it.

BROWSING RESOURCES ON THE EXCHANGE
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HOW DO I BROWSE RESOURCES?
If you click on “smARTexchange” anywhere on the site, you will be taken directly to the exchange browsing. If you are already on any of the discussion pages, you will see a BROWSE RESOURCES button at the top-right of the page on the “smARTexchange” header. Click it to begin browsing. The smARTexchange homepage will automatically display all resources starting with the most recently created.

There are basically three ways to browse the resources:

  1. Dropdown options: The dropdown options allow you to search the resources based on grade level, resource type, status, related artists, movements, media, elements/principles and subjects. You can use the dropdowns in any combination you’d like (you can make selections from none, one, three or all).
  2. Keyword search: The keyword search will check our resources database for the EXACT word or phrase you type in (if you search for “Picasso Acrylic” you will only see resources with that exact phrase, you will not see results that include only “Picasso” or “Acrylic”). So keep your searches short and sweet. The keyword search can also be used in conjunction with the dropdown options.
  3. Sorting: Beneath the search bubble, directly above the results, you will see a dropdown for sorting options. You can use these sorting options to order the results by certain criteria. The results are automatically sorted by Creation Date (most recently created at the top). If you would prefer to sort by the number of keeps a resource has received, select “Number of Keeps” from the dropdown and voila—the resources with the most keeps will rise to the top of your results.

SMARTPEOPLE
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BROWSING PEOPLE
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HOW DO I BROWSE PEOPLE?
If you click on “smARTpeople” anywhere on the site, you will be taken directly to the people browsing. If you are already on a people or profile page, you will see a BROWSE ALL button at the top-right of the page on the “smARTpeople” header. Click it to begin browsing. The smARTpeople homepage will automatically display the most recently registered users.

There are basically three ways to browse people:

  1. Dropdown options: The dropdown options allow you to search the people based on user Type and Status. You can use the dropdowns in any combination you’d like (you can make selections from none, one, or both).
  2. Keyword search: The keyword search will check our people database for the EXACT word or phrase you type in (if you search for “Art Museum,” you will only see users with that exact phrase in their profile, you will not see results that include only “Art” or “Museum”). So keep your searches short and sweet. The keyword search can also be used in conjunction with the dropdown options.
  3. Sorting: Beneath the search bubble, directly above the results, you will see a dropdown for sorting options. You can use these sorting options to order the results by certain criteria. The results are automatically sorted by Newest Member (newest members at the top). If you would prefer to sort by the number of keeps a user has received, select “Number of Keeps” from the dropdown and voila—the users with the most keeps will rise to the top of your results.

STILL HAVE AN UNANSWERED QUESTION?
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Contact us at contact@thesmartteacher.com with your question!