WebClassroom:  Week #2

This week's topics:

Announcements

Essentials of Good Instruction

Looking "Under the Hood" of a Web Page

Experimenting with Netscape Composer

"Instructional Focus" Pages

Deadlines

Announcements

I am very impressed so far with the level of quality in the course discussions.  Please keep up the good work with this week's discussion focus.

On Wednesday evening there will be an OPTIONAL online social gathering in The Dragon's Head from 9:15 to 9:45 PM Central Standard Time.  The Dragon's Head is a chat area that can be reached from the course home page.  You will not miss any instruction if you can't make it.   It is for fun...bring your coffee, rootbeer float, or celery sticks, place them a safe distance from your computer, and take a few minutes to talk with your classmates (if you can).  Some of you who participated last week expressed dissatisfaction with the chat environment.  I would like to stay one more week with the same system (just so a few others that might have missed can give it a try) and explore alternatives in the future.  The key is to hit the UPDATE button frequently so that you can view new statements that individuals have recently made.

 

Essentials of Good Instruction

Technology frequently leaves its position as a "servant/tool" of  instruction and begins to dominate.  The nuts and bolts of getting the technology to work often distracts teachers and learners from the instructional process itself.  Chapters 6, 9, and 16 (all fairly brief) of Web-Based Instruction prompt us to think about  key ingredients to good instruction.

Discussion:  What basic characteristics are generally essential to _any_ quality instruction (web-based or otherwise)?  Then: Can these essentials all be successfully integrated into WBI?

 After reading these chapters, conduct the discussion in the WC:WK2 discussion area.  Note: Later this week I will be creating a short summary of the main points of last week's discussions.  I will email this summary to you.  As you participate in the discussions this week, please be advised that you may be asked in the future to create a brief summary as well (200-300 words).
 
 

  Looking "Under the Hood" of a Web Page

When you click on a web page's "link" your browser sends a request for that new page out over the internet.  When that request reaches the server computer that the desired page is stored on, the server (if it is able) responds by sending back information about that page in the form of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) tags.  When your browser has received this information it displays the page on your screen.

Take a few minutes to look "under the hood" of a web page by reading and examining a crude page that I assembled for your study.  The 3 most basic elements of a web page include: text, links, and images.  See if you can identify the "tags" that are used to produce each of these elements on that page.

 
 

Experimenting With Netscape Composer (built into Communicator)

Netscape Communicator has a web page editor built into it (Netscape 3 Gold had one as well).  It offers you a working interface that is much like a word processor.  Behind the scenes, however, Netscape is writing the HTML tags needed to reproduce the page when transferred over the internet.  Do the following steps in order to explore some of the basic formatting options  of Netscape Communicator's Composer:

    1.  Pull the FILE menu of Communicator to NEW and then select BLANK PAGE.
    2.  Type: I love the web    (or any other short statement you desire).
    3.  Click next to the text you have typed, and drag the mouse to highlight the text.
    4.  Pull down the FORMAT menu to FONT and then select a font.
    5.  Click outside of the selected text to un-highlight and observe the change.

Repeat steps 3 through 5 (but substitute various changes in text size, style, color, alignment, or anything else in the FORMAT menu).
 

Instructional Focus Pages

The World Wide Web is filled with vast wonders--and vast quantities of useless sludge.  There are many occasions when we want students to experience the process of searching the expanse of the web for information on various research topics.  There are other times when we would like to streamline the process for other instructional purposes.  On one document an instructional focus page provides the learner with:

    Background information/introduction.

    Directions of what to do.

    Links to quality online resources that support the instructional activity.

This week's final assignment asks you to take a look at a simple example of an instructional focus page.  Then, choose a topic and begin planning an instructional focus page of your own.  We will walk you through the actual creation of the page next week.  This week, simply come up with an idea and the addresses of some resource links that would relate to your topic.  These activities lay the groundwork for our first expeditions into creating web-based curriculum materials.
 

Deadlines

All Week 2 work and discussions should be concluded by 12:01 AM Central Daylight Time on February 16.  Week 2 materials and assignments will be up by 12:01 PM Central Daylight Time that day (Feb 16).