April 26, 2007

End-of-semester reflection on web design

According to the syllabus today marks the last formal class meeting for IT 578, which is an introductory course in web design and Dreamweaver. Our project sites are due exactly one week from today. My site, a publishing portal for teen writers, is no where near complete and neither is my understanding of the complexities of web design and web site development.

One thing I am certain of is this is an intensely visual medium. I may be stating the obvious to some people, but I don't think the casual Internet audience can really appreciate this fact until they juggle the myriad choices and decisions that go into the creation of the user interface and navigational matrix. (Now, that sounds just plain geeky!)

These last six weeks, I have been completely consumed with aesthetics, leaving myself very little time for the development of actual content. The last four days alone I have obsessed over the appearance of my hyperlinks, for gosh sakes! How the color and format of the links actually contribute to the instructional value of my site, . . . well, it is just too ridiculous. Yet, here I have been since Sunday night, changing and re-changing their color and behavior until finally deciding to go back to the original default settings!

The authors of the style guide used in IT 578, Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton, begin each chapter in their text with quotes from some surprisingly literary sources – even Henry David Thoreau, who famously admonished Americans to “Simplify, simplify!” and who questioned the value of telegraph lines and transatlantic cable. (Relax, it's just Cliffs Notes! If you want to read the original, see "Economy" from Walden.) I don't know if Lynch and Horton are going for a sense of irony, or what, but Chapter 6 on editorial style begins with this quote from the Hitchhiker author, Douglas Adams:
First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII – and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.

I have thought about how I would teach a course in web design to high school students. I don't have the artistic sensibility to do it justice. Ideally, I would like to teach the development portion, in which I help young people compose the editorial content with consideration to style, brevity, and some journalistic principles thrown in for good measure. Another teacher could work with the students on the technical side of things, including graphics and visual presentation. It would be cool if a course was taught in tandem like that. I wonder if it's done that way anywhere?

In true web fashion, I will conclude this reflection with a Top 10 list. This list is composed of facts as well as general impressions and observations about web design that I hope to remember should I ever again have the opportunity to construct a site from the ground up. So, here are the Analog Girl's Top 10 Principles of Web Design, in no particular order:

  • You can never give the audience too many ways to navigate your site.

  • Throughout the development process, check your site frequently on different machines and in different browsers.

  • Every web page should include these five elements: title; creation/revision date; link to homepage; homepage URL in footer; and the site administrator's contact info.

  • Make your page titles into “pearls of clarity.” Each page must be able to stand alone, apart from the context of the site.

  • Use white space for emphasis. Pure, subtle, elegant.

  • Make links descriptive so the reader knows exactly what he or she is going to get. In other words, avoid “click here” and other empty phrases.

  • Pay attention to factors that will make your site more accessible and readable. To that end, the World Wide Web Consortium provides 10 quick tips for web designers.

  • Animated gifs suck. And there is a word to describe over-use of multimedia -- “Flashturbation.” Love that one!

  • Remember, it's the WORLD Wide Web! OK, while I like the elegance of the international date stamp, I don't know how I feel about completely purging idiomatic expression and regional language from the web. Where's the color and humanity in that?

  • Know and respect your audience. It is the quintessential rule of good writing, and it's no less true for the web.


These last two items on my list of observations about web design may seem mutually exclusive, but I think it's the tension between the two that makes it all so exciting! Here is a great conversation about the problem of language in digital learning environments on Julie Lindsay's e-Learning blog. The comments that follow her post are quite illuminating.
Share/Bookmark

End-of-semester reflection on web design

According to the syllabus today marks the last formal class meeting for IT 578, which is an introductory course in web design and Dreamweaver. Our project sites are due exactly one week from today. My site, a publishing portal for teen writers, is no where near complete and neither is my understanding of the complexities of web design and web site development.

One thing I am certain of is this is an intensely visual medium. I may be stating the obvious to some people, but I don't think the casual Internet audience can really appreciate this fact until they juggle the myriad choices and decisions that go into the creation of the user interface and navigational matrix. (Now, that sounds just plain geeky!)

These last six weeks, I have been completely consumed with aesthetics, leaving myself very little time for the development of actual content. The last four days alone I have obsessed over the appearance of my hyperlinks, for gosh sakes! How the color and format of the links actually contribute to the instructional value of my site, . . . well, it is just too ridiculous. Yet, here I have been since Sunday night, changing and re-changing their color and behavior until finally deciding to go back to the original default settings!

The authors of the style guide used in IT 578, Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton, begin each chapter in their text with quotes from some surprisingly literary sources – even Henry David Thoreau, who famously admonished Americans to “Simplify, simplify!” and who questioned the value of telegraph lines and transatlantic cable. (Relax, it's just Cliffs Notes! If you want to read the original, see "Economy" from Walden.) I don't know if Lynch and Horton are going for a sense of irony, or what, but Chapter 6 on editorial style begins with this quote from the Hitchhiker author, Douglas Adams:
First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII – and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.

I have thought about how I would teach a course in web design to high school students. I don't have the artistic sensibility to do it justice. Ideally, I would like to teach the development portion, in which I help young people compose the editorial content with consideration to style, brevity, and some journalistic principles thrown in for good measure. Another teacher could work with the students on the technical side of things, including graphics and visual presentation. It would be cool if a course was taught in tandem like that. I wonder if it's done that way anywhere?

In true web fashion, I will conclude this reflection with a Top 10 list. This list is composed of facts as well as general impressions and observations about web design that I hope to remember should I ever again have the opportunity to construct a site from the ground up. So, here are the Analog Girl's Top 10 Principles of Web Design, in no particular order:

  • You can never give the audience too many ways to navigate your site.
  • Throughout the development process, check your site frequently on different machines and in different browsers.
  • Every web page should include these five elements: title; creation/revision date; link to homepage; homepage URL in footer; and the site administrator's contact info.
  • Make your page titles into “pearls of clarity.” Each page must be able to stand alone, apart from the context of the site.
  • Use white space for emphasis. Pure, subtle, elegant.
  • Make links descriptive so the reader knows exactly what he or she is going to get. In other words, avoid “click here” and other empty phrases.
  • Pay attention to factors that will make your site more accessible and readable. To that end, the World Wide Web Consortium provides 10 quick tips for web designers.
  • Animated gifs suck. And there is a word to describe over-use of multimedia -- “Flashturbation.” Love that one!
  • Remember, it's the WORLD Wide Web! OK, while I like the elegance of the international date stamp, I don't know how I feel about completely purging idiomatic expression and regional language from the web. Where's the color and humanity in that?
  • Know and respect your audience. It is the quintessential rule of good writing, and it's no less true for the web.
These last two items on my list of observations about web design may seem mutually exclusive, but I think it's the tension between the two that makes it all so exciting! Here is a great conversation about the problem of language in digital learning environments on Julie Lindsay's e-Learning blog. The comments that follow her post are quite illuminating.
Share/Bookmark

April 17, 2007

NO LOGO by Naomi Klein

As part of a research paper on the privatization of public schools, specifically commercialization through school-business "partnerships," I began reading No Logo by Naomi Klein. Note my use of the word "began;" I got as far as Chapter 4, "The Branding of Learning," which has helped me understand how the traditional line between the pubic and private sectors has become blurred in recent years. As a whole, the book rests on the thesis that an underground revolution is simmering and a whole generation of anticorporate radicals and global citizens will rise up and reclaim our "sold planet" from the Starbucks and the Wal-marts. Maybe I'll finish the book before all that happens.

My reason for mentioning No Logo here is the connection Klein draws between the privatization of education and instructional technology. Klein theorizes that commercialism in schools is directly correlated to an increase in "info-tech hype" that started in the 1990s. During that decade, American marketers waged a successful campaign in which they appealed to the desire of many local communities and school boards to provide state-of-the-art classrooms to schoolchildren despite perennial budget shortfalls:
It was technology that lent a new urgency to nineties chronic underfunding: at the same time as schools were facing ever-deeper budget cuts, the costs of delivering a modern education were steeply rising, forcing many educators to look to alternative funding sources for help. . . . Schools that couldn't afford up-to-date textbooks were suddenly expected to provide students with audiovisual equipment, video cameras, classroom computers, desktop publishing capacity, the latest educational software programs, Internet access -- even, at some schools, video-conferencing. (p. 88)

This equation enabled the multinational brands (Coke, Disney, etc.) to essentially eliminate "the barrier between ads and education." Wow. So, it seems that instructional technologists, school reformers, administrators, teachers, really ANYONE who opens the classroom door to corporate funding needs to be able to discern what is hype and what is not hype. My guess is it's HYPE if the objective is to put a SmartBoard in every classroom or a laptop in the hands of every child. It's NOT hype if a teacher in Danbury, Texas, writes and wins a $2500 grant from Best Buy to start a student film festival. (Thanks to my mom for the newspaper clipping!)

Interesting side note: Knox County's most visible partnership with business is the annual coupon book drive, in which local and national companies sponsor money-saving coupons bound in a chunky, little book that, in turn, elementary and middle school students hawk all over the county at $10 a pop. According to the KCS website, the 2006 campaign raised a $1.5 million dollar profit. The county returns 75 percent of the funds to the schools who sell the books. Of the 67 elementary and middle schools who participated, 82 percent reported using this money to buy -- you guessed it -- technology, software, and computer upgrades. Less than 20 percent report using coupon book proceeds on the arts, playground improvements, and field trips.


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NO LOGO by Naomi Klein

As part of a research paper on the privatization of public schools, specifically commercialization through school-business "partnerships," I began reading No Logo by Naomi Klein. Note my use of the word "began;" I got as far as Chapter 4, "The Branding of Learning," which has helped me understand how the traditional line between the pubic and private sectors has become blurred in recent years. As a whole, the book rests on the thesis that an underground revolution is simmering and a whole generation of anticorporate radicals and global citizens will rise up and reclaim our "sold planet" from the Starbucks and the Wal-marts. Maybe I'll finish the book before all that happens.

My reason for mentioning No Logo here is the connection Klein draws between the privatization of education and instructional technology. Klein theorizes that commercialism in schools is directly correlated to an increase in "info-tech hype" that started in the 1990s. During that decade, American marketers waged a successful campaign in which they appealed to the desire of many local communities and school boards to provide state-of-the-art classrooms to schoolchildren despite perennial budget shortfalls:
It was technology that lent a new urgency to nineties chronic underfunding: at the same time as schools were facing ever-deeper budget cuts, the costs of delivering a modern education were steeply rising, forcing many educators to look to alternative funding sources for help. . . . Schools that couldn't afford up-to-date textbooks were suddenly expected to provide students with audiovisual equipment, video cameras, classroom computers, desktop publishing capacity, the latest educational software programs, Internet access -- even, at some schools, video-conferencing. (p. 88)

This equation enabled the multinational brands (Coke, Disney, etc.) to essentially eliminate "the barrier between ads and education." Wow. So, it seems that instructional technologists, school reformers, administrators, teachers, really ANYONE who opens the classroom door to corporate funding needs to be able to discern what is hype and what is not hype. My guess is it's HYPE if the objective is to put a SmartBoard in every classroom or a laptop in the hands of every child. It's NOT hype if a teacher in Danbury, Texas, writes and wins a $2500 grant from Best Buy to start a student film festival. (Thanks to my mom for the newspaper clipping!)

Interesting side note: Knox County's most visible partnership with business is the annual coupon book drive, in which local and national companies sponsor money-saving coupons bound in a chunky, little book that, in turn, elementary and middle school students hawk all over the county at $10 a pop. According to the KCS website, the 2006 campaign raised a $1.5 million dollar profit. The county returns 75 percent of the funds to the schools who sell the books. Of the 67 elementary and middle schools who participated, 82 percent reported using this money to buy -- you guessed it -- technology, software, and computer upgrades. Less than 20 percent report using coupon book proceeds on the arts, playground improvements, and field trips.


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Another Webliographer, called "Publish Me!"

In addition to the Fulton Webliographer, which I wrote about on April 7, I have developed a Webliographer page based on my personal interest in resources and publishing opportunities for teenagers. This Webliographer is still in development and will continue to grow along with the Publish Me! website, which I am designing as part of my final project for IT 578.

Both of these projects are near to my heart. This is getting close to the kind of teacher I want to be. Now, if I could just find some students. . . .
Share/Bookmark

Another Webliographer, called "Publish Me!"

In addition to the Fulton Webliographer, which I wrote about on April 7, I have developed a Webliographer page based on my personal interest in resources and publishing opportunities for teenagers. This Webliographer is still in development and will continue to grow along with the Publish Me! website, which I am designing as part of my final project for IT 578.

Both of these projects are near to my heart. This is getting close to the kind of teacher I want to be. Now, if I could just find some students. . . .
Share/Bookmark

April 7, 2007

Reflections on my Webliographer presentation to teachers

On Tuesday, April 3, I conducted an informal, after-school inservice at Fulton High School in Knox County. The topic was Webliographer, which is essentially a web-based social bookmarking application for teachers. This presentation helps fulfill part of my semester-long project for IT 521. The inservice was not well-attended, probably because of the bad timing within the school year. (Can you say, “Testing, one, two, three, testing”?) Those in attendance included one English teacher (my friend), two librarians (also friends), a special ed teacher, a special ed teaching assistant, and me. I prepared a brief FAQ on Webliographer as well as some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to register an account, create a topic and subtopics, and enter URLs/bookmarks. Because of the small number in attendance, we were able to sit together at one table with the Fulton Webliographer homepage on display on a smartboard behind us. I thought we would discuss the merits of the program quickly and spend the majority of our time registering the teachers in attendance and perhaps even getting their subtopics set up with a few URLs posted. I was wrong.

We did do some of those things, but our conversation about Webliographer centered for some time on shared concerns within the group that the program was too vulnerable to students hijacking it and somehow degrading its contents. What, after all, is to stop a resourceful, and perhaps hateful, student from registering an account, joining the Fulton Webliographer community, and deleting a teacher's entries or adding a bunch of inappropriate entries?

I had anticipated these concerns but, admittedly, had not completely thought them through beforehand. On the spot, I said something like this: “If Webliographer grows into a vital community of users who are adding and sharing bookmarks daily, we will catch this sort of thing and be able to intercede before much damage is done.” It was a weak response. Webliographer, which I had been portraying as a handy little timesaver to facilitate instruction was actually going to require monitoring and vigilance on the part of the teacher? (Much later that evening, it occurred to me that as the default administrator of the website, I receive an email notification each time someone registers at the Fulton Webliographer. I instantly know the person's name, email address, and any URLs he or she has added. Had I thought of this sooner, I would have brought it up to the inservice group. That may have been all they needed to hear to allay concerns about Webliographer's vulnerability.)

Bottom line: I am still learning about Webliographer and other social networking software, and I don't know how to prevent students from pirating these applications. And truth be told, I'm not that worried about it.

This small episode strikes at the heart of a huge issue affecting the integration of technology into instruction: the problem of gatekeeping. As an English teacher this has always been on my radar, for reasons I'll make clear in a moment. In the last several months, however, it has transformed from a mere blip in my subconscious to a fairly sizable asteroid crashing in on my thoughts almost daily (in keeping with the whole radar metaphor). It is a topic discussed widely across the educational blogosphere by folks who have some pretty interesting things to say: Andy Carvin, Will Richardson, Christian Long. (Why all the men? I have yet to find a consistent female voice on the edtech blogs; I conclude this is because all the women are busy teaching.)

My most recent and favorite comment touching on the subject of gatekeeping comes from Chris Lehman, founding principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia who was recently quoted in a great Edutopia article. In a Q&A on social networking software in the classroom and how to prevent abuse of it, he said:
The idea that we are the stories we tell has never been more important. Schools have always taught kids how to present themselves – that's why we did oral presentations in the classroom. Now we need to teach them to present themselves electronically. That's why it's so scary to lock these technologies out.

Let's talk about scary for a moment. It's intimidating when I consider how I might alter my classroom practice to accommodate more user-generated content, such as found on Wikipedia. It is even scarier to imagine what might result if I encourage students to participate in the construction of the knowledge base through wikis, blogs, and, yes, social bookmarking programs. It is scary, and it is exhilarating. But, come on, it's not really a new concept. I felt the same way when I plunged headlong into cooperative learning groups several years ago. I felt the same way every time I called on volunteers to read their freewriting exercises aloud in front of the class. And don't even get me started on poetry and journals. Any time I ask students to write, reflect, or discuss, I risk them writing something or saying something I wish was left unwritten or unsaid. But what's the alternative?

My husband, Ron, helped me frame my thinking on this. He directs a website for a home improvement cable channel. His group is about to launch a completely user-generated section on the site. (Think “home improvement wiki.”) And he also has had to address concerns emanating from middle and upper management: “What if someone puts up something inappropriate? What if a person uses it as an opportunity to slander us or one of our sponsors? It could embarrass the company.” Ron anticipates isolated instances of this sort of thing, but nothing that can't be managed by a thoughtful and passionate group of home improvement enthusiasts supported by site administrators, who have the technical know-how to quickly delete specious or downright harmful material. In large part, he is counting on users to police the web page. If someone flags something as inappropriate, a site administrator will remove it, and everyone will move on.

Which brings me back around to the issue of gatekeeping. To quote Ron, “Computers will never replace due diligence.” He said it in relation to his own work as a site director, but clearly it applies to anyone who works in an atmosphere where the rapid advance of technology stirs up questions and anxieties. Certainly it applies to the educational arena and the role of the teacher in it. Diligence is a work ethic, and I don't know a single teacher who doesn't want to develop that trait in students, regardless of his or her content area or academic discipline. Bringing a tool such as Webliographer into the mix, simply gives us an additional opportunity (the cliché “teachable moment”) to impart this important value.
Share/Bookmark

Reflections on my Webliographer presentation to teachers

On Tuesday, April 3, I conducted an informal, after-school inservice at Fulton High School in Knox County. The topic was Webliographer, which is essentially a web-based social bookmarking application for teachers. This presentation helps fulfill part of my semester-long project for IT 521. The inservice was not well-attended, probably because of the bad timing within the school year. (Can you say, “Testing, one, two, three, testing”?) Those in attendance included one English teacher (my friend), two librarians (also friends), a special ed teacher, a special ed teaching assistant, and me. I prepared a brief FAQ on Webliographer as well as some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to register an account, create a topic and subtopics, and enter URLs/bookmarks. Because of the small number in attendance, we were able to sit together at one table with the Fulton Webliographer homepage on display on a smartboard behind us. I thought we would discuss the merits of the program quickly and spend the majority of our time registering the teachers in attendance and perhaps even getting their subtopics set up with a few URLs posted. I was wrong.

We did do some of those things, but our conversation about Webliographer centered for some time on shared concerns within the group that the program was too vulnerable to students hijacking it and somehow degrading its contents. What, after all, is to stop a resourceful, and perhaps hateful, student from registering an account, joining the Fulton Webliographer community, and deleting a teacher's entries or adding a bunch of inappropriate entries?

I had anticipated these concerns but, admittedly, had not completely thought them through beforehand. On the spot, I said something like this: “If Webliographer grows into a vital community of users who are adding and sharing bookmarks daily, we will catch this sort of thing and be able to intercede before much damage is done.” It was a weak response. Webliographer, which I had been portraying as a handy little timesaver to facilitate instruction was actually going to require monitoring and vigilance on the part of the teacher? (Much later that evening, it occurred to me that as the default administrator of the website, I receive an email notification each time someone registers at the Fulton Webliographer. I instantly know the person's name, email address, and any URLs he or she has added. Had I thought of this sooner, I would have brought it up to the inservice group. That may have been all they needed to hear to allay concerns about Webliographer's vulnerability.)

Bottom line: I am still learning about Webliographer and other social networking software, and I don't know how to prevent students from pirating these applications. And truth be told, I'm not that worried about it.

This small episode strikes at the heart of a huge issue affecting the integration of technology into instruction: the problem of gatekeeping. As an English teacher this has always been on my radar, for reasons I'll make clear in a moment. In the last several months, however, it has transformed from a mere blip in my subconscious to a fairly sizable asteroid crashing in on my thoughts almost daily (in keeping with the whole radar metaphor). It is a topic discussed widely across the educational blogosphere by folks who have some pretty interesting things to say: Andy Carvin, Will Richardson, Christian Long. (Why all the men? I have yet to find a consistent female voice on the edtech blogs; I conclude this is because all the women are busy teaching.)

My most recent and favorite comment touching on the subject of gatekeeping comes from Chris Lehman, founding principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia who was recently quoted in a great Edutopia article. In a Q&A on social networking software in the classroom and how to prevent abuse of it, he said:
The idea that we are the stories we tell has never been more important. Schools have always taught kids how to present themselves – that's why we did oral presentations in the classroom. Now we need to teach them to present themselves electronically. That's why it's so scary to lock these technologies out.

Let's talk about scary for a moment. It's intimidating when I consider how I might alter my classroom practice to accommodate more user-generated content, such as found on Wikipedia. It is even scarier to imagine what might result if I encourage students to participate in the construction of the knowledge base through wikis, blogs, and, yes, social bookmarking programs. It is scary, and it is exhilarating. But, come on, it's not really a new concept. I felt the same way when I plunged headlong into cooperative learning groups several years ago. I felt the same way every time I called on volunteers to read their freewriting exercises aloud in front of the class. And don't even get me started on poetry and journals. Any time I ask students to write, reflect, or discuss, I risk them writing something or saying something I wish was left unwritten or unsaid. But what's the alternative?

My husband, Ron, helped me frame my thinking on this. He directs a website for a home improvement cable channel. His group is about to launch a completely user-generated section on the site. (Think “home improvement wiki.”) And he also has had to address concerns emanating from middle and upper management: “What if someone puts up something inappropriate? What if a person uses it as an opportunity to slander us or one of our sponsors? It could embarrass the company.” Ron anticipates isolated instances of this sort of thing, but nothing that can't be managed by a thoughtful and passionate group of home improvement enthusiasts supported by site administrators, who have the technical know-how to quickly delete specious or downright harmful material. In large part, he is counting on users to police the web page. If someone flags something as inappropriate, a site administrator will remove it, and everyone will move on.

Which brings me back around to the issue of gatekeeping. To quote Ron, “Computers will never replace due diligence.” He said it in relation to his own work as a site director, but clearly it applies to anyone who works in an atmosphere where the rapid advance of technology stirs up questions and anxieties. Certainly it applies to the educational arena and the role of the teacher in it. Diligence is a work ethic, and I don't know a single teacher who doesn't want to develop that trait in students, regardless of his or her content area or academic discipline. Bringing a tool such as Webliographer into the mix, simply gives us an additional opportunity (the cliché “teachable moment”) to impart this important value.


Share/Bookmark

April 2, 2007

More insight about the power of blogs

I am still coming to terms with the potential power of blog "conversations." See Karl Fisch's comment re: my March 20th post about backlinking. He clarifies how he tracks links to his own blog, The Fischbowl. Fascinating.


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More insight about the power of blogs

I am still coming to terms with the potential power of blog "conversations." See Karl Fisch's comment re: my March 20th post about backlinking. He clarifies how he tracks links to his own blog, The Fischbowl. Fascinating.
Share/Bookmark

April is the cruelest month: an update on my IT 521 projects

Well, it's April, and the countdown is on. I haven't posted in a while, so here is a progress report on my final projects for IT 521.

My PC, which continues to run Ubuntu splendidly, is still not wireless. Unfortunately, I have had to shift my attention away from it to work on other assignments and projects for IT 521. In hopes of solving the wireless issue, I did try installing the 7.04 beta mode upgrade available off the front page of the Ubuntu website. The download and install went smoothly, but there is still no Internet access without a network cable. Overall, I am pleased with the speed and ease of the Ubuntu OS but would very much like to solve the wireless problem.

My focus this past week has been on Inspiration and open-source concept mapping software (CMap and FreeMind). This IT 521 assignment really held my attention because I was able to use these tools to complete other course work as well as help a friend plan a vacation. For example, I mapped the effects of NCLB legislation using CMap. I also created an interactive outline of barbecue restaurants and live music venues in Austin, Texas. Not too shabby!

Now, I am focused on Webliograpaher. I have set up two Webliographer pages as part of my semester project in IT 521. Here are the links:

Publish Me! Webliographer
Fulton High School Webliographer

On Tuesday, April 3, I will conduct a brief, after-school inservice for Fulton High School faculty members who want to participate in the Fulton Webliographer. I hope to help at least a few teachers register a user account and start adding their own URLs. I am especially interested in selling the simplicity and efficiency of web-based bookmarking, a concept I didn't know about until this semester. There is tremendous value here for the classroom teacher who wishes to seamlessly integrate Internet resources into instruction.
Share/Bookmark

April is the cruelest month: an update on my IT 521 projects

Well, it's April, and the countdown is on. I haven't posted in a while, so here is a progress report on my final projects for IT 521.

My PC, which continues to run Ubuntu splendidly, is still not wireless. Unfortunately, I have had to shift my attention away from it to work on other assignments and projects for IT 521. In hopes of solving the wireless issue, I did try installing the 7.04 beta mode upgrade available off the front page of the Ubuntu website. The download and install went smoothly, but there is still no Internet access without a network cable. Overall, I am pleased with the speed and ease of the Ubuntu OS but would very much like to solve the wireless problem.

My focus this past week has been on Inspiration and open-source concept mapping software (CMap and FreeMind). This IT 521 assignment really held my attention because I was able to use these tools to complete other course work as well as help a friend plan a vacation. For example, I mapped the effects of NCLB legislation using CMap. I also created an interactive outline of barbecue restaurants and live music venues in Austin, Texas. Not too shabby!

Now, I am focused on Webliograpaher. I have set up two Webliographer pages as part of my semester project in IT 521. Here are the links:

Publish Me! Webliographer
Fulton High School Webliographer

On Tuesday, April 3, I will conduct a brief, after-school inservice for Fulton High School faculty members who want to participate in the Fulton Webliographer. I hope to help at least a few teachers register a user account and start adding their own URLs. I am especially interested in selling the simplicity and efficiency of web-based bookmarking, a concept I didn't know about until this semester. There is tremendous value here for the classroom teacher who wishes to seamlessly integrate Internet resources into instruction.
Share/Bookmark