Linda J. Burke

Assignment 4

I have chosen to review three sites which offer tutorials on HTML to see what features I wish to incorporate into my portion of our project site. I also reviewed the site Technology Competencies Database because SXU's School of Education is looking for assessment strategies for preservice teachers.  The Interactive CD edition of Woolfolk's Educational Psychology comes with the textbook on Educational Psychology that I will use next semester.

• Introduction to HTML at http://www.cwru.edu/help/introHTML/toc.html

I liked the way in which the navigation was set up - very clean with intuitive icons. The introduction set up what the scope of the site is and its limitations.  The glossary is an excellent idea, which I want to incorporate, either as is (with permission) , or create for our project.  This tutorial  breaks down the process into small manageable sections, with quiz-type review at end of each section.  I like the way there are examples to look at after the information is presented. I am wondering about the value of this approach - does the learner need to get too far before they feel they can do something?  The sections which discuss the future directions of HTML I found very interesting.  I appreciated the discussion of the  browser specific nature of display.

• Calkid's University. Welcome to "HTML 101" your first lesson right here on the net. At http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5969/index.html

This site is very new looking with black background and bright colors.  Its use of tables to summarize the main ideas and tags was interesting and logical. The tables include the item,  the tag, description, example, and what it does.  It also offers a printable version of the tutorial which might be useful for reference.  The approach uses examples, but does not directly explain the logical structure of HTML pages and there are mistakes in the examples.  It was very annoying to have advertisement window from Netscape open up every time you tried to navigate around this site.  I don't believe this approach offers enough explanation to help someone who is starting from scratch.

• HTML 101, an introduction to publishing on the World-Wide Web, which is presented as part of the TEACH ME Series of on-line training courses. At http://web.marshall.edu/html101/

This site covers the basics of Web Publishing. There is a small amount on each page. The approach uses an example student, and her account. I see the need to add this level to our project for each institution.  I liked the very sequential nature, with a small bit of material at a time. The navigation is very clear.  I think I would like to use this idea, with an example faculty member who wants to post their course syllabi. 

• Technology Competencies Database Matrix at http://leader.soed.siue.edu/lasso/testdb/tcd.html

I found the site easy to navigate.  A strength is the use of the ISTE and NCATE competencies as base. I liked logging in as student. While it was interesting to read student responses, I was also interested in examples of  successful achievement of technologies. I never succeeded despite multiple attempts.  I kept getting timed out.  I also logged in as a faculty member.  I would be interested in which faculty are responsible for responding.  To get more information I went to http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/jbuell/necc98/index.htm to see the Powerpoint presentation done by Buell, Waugh and Levin at NECC which offered a good overview and some of the implementation steps. In addition, I found the site http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/tcd/ very useful in getting the historical perspective, hardware and software aspects and references to papers based on the work (several of which I have now read).  I still have questions about the implementation of this at our institution, but it is an approach that seems to have great value for models which infuse technology into the preservice program.

• Interactive CD edition of Woolfolk's Educational Psychology, published by Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights, MA (1999)

My undergraduate Educational Psychology students will be using this text, and the CD Rom will come with it. I wanted to see if it was worth encouraging students to use the CD, and worth taking the time to train students to use Adobe Acrobat and Quick Time.  Installation was very straightforward, but I am concerned about students who do not have their own computer.  I went through Chapter 1, and played all the additions.  Each chapter is a duplicate of the printed text, with video, audio, activities, and web links added. The quality of all of these was excellent.  They featured the voices of teachers in the field, which I think preservice teachers would find intriguing. The end of chapter quiz was a good idea, but did not cover what I thought were the main points of the chapter.  I will be asking my students to use the CD, but I will now need to look at my class in terms of what I use class time for. I use videos of actual classroom practice, but some of these may now be incorporated.  It should give me more time for group activities and reflections.