Week 9 Roadmap |
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FunFunbrain has some impressive web-based children's games. Try a couple. Read Copyright ReviewsSpend some time in our Discussions area reading the copyright reviews, and also the postings on presentation software. Read Chapter 11on implementing hardware and software in instruction. Who's Who in IDTHere's an interesting site for our field: Who's Who in Instructional Technology Spend a few minutes at the above site, to see who the movers and shakers in our field are, at least according to the site author. Note a heavy New Zealand, Australian flavor, as the author is from New Zealand. My "Top Ten" IDT Reading ListOver the last two weeks we looked at several scholars' lists of of "top 10" books in instructional design and technology. In the spirit of those lists, here are my top 10 books that every professional in our field should read, in no particular order. Synchronous ToolsSynchronous (same time) tools are those that enable communication in real time. Telephones, instant messaging, chat, video and audio-conferencing are all synchronous tools. Go to this wiki page and add an example of a particular synchronous product, and a short explanation. Use the format as I have done on the page. Web Usability, and Usability TestingWhy should we learn about usability? Good question. The usability of your web-based instructional products will have an effect on how much your students learn. If the students cannot effectively use your sites and tools, they cannot learn as efficiently and effectively as possible. To introduce usability, how about a little Dilbert humor. Here's another. Usability of of all kinds of products is important, and it is also big business. Usability is simply an indication of how usable, understandable, effective, and user-friendly a product or service is. Explain that again, you say. I will. Here is a formal definition of usability. Now, read this brief Introduction to Usability. Usability of web sites is an important issue, particularly if you are running a web-based business. If your customers cannot easily and effectively use your site, your profits go down. Usability in online instruction is also important. Jakob Nielsen is well known for developing research-based guidelines on web usability. He publishes a bi-weekly "Alertbox" column on web usability. Visit his site at useit.com and read these Nielsen columns:
and avoid these common mistakes. Bear in mind he is writing about web design for commercial sites such as Amazon and Wal-Mart. The Usability Professionals Association is just what it's name says. Visit the site to find out what usability experts do. This site from usability.gov is the best one I've seen with specific, research-based guidelines on improving usability of web sites. Spend around 30 minutes here. If you are looking for more specific web design guidelines, a great source is the Web Style Guide. For the truly curious, you can continue on to usabilityfirst, a nice site all about web usability, with some definitions, humor, etc. Web AccessibilityWeb accessibility is an important issue for anyone who publishes to the web. Why? Here is a short answer. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a group founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. This group helps manage standards for the WWW. Here are the W3C standards for web accessibility. (You are not required to read all these standards, but you do need to know they exist). Here is a great article from W3C entitled Auxiliary Benefits of Accessible Web Design. Optional reading. One of the best known sites for accessibility is the WebXACT tool for testing web sites. Here you can check any web site for accessibility by typing in the site URL. Optional: try this for two or three web sites you use. Post about Educational SoftwareIn our Discussion forums under the forum "Educational Software", write at least 150 words about educational software with which you are familiar. This could be software that you are currently using as a student or teacher, or software you used in the past. This should be software which explicitly tries to help you learn something. (Not a word processor, for example.) Begin Webquest AssignmentFound under "Assignments". |
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Here's one of my recent vacation photos. Can you see the family resemblance? And here's my favorite movie poster. Fun with Photoshop. |
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I'm enjoying emailing and talking with you. Don't hesitate to send your questions and comments. Have a great week! |
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