The Intro Video (no longer available)
First, let's quickly review "why you should put your course materials on the web."
So, why do it?
- students can access whenever/wherever (24-7); ensures that all students have access (not just those who show up to class)
- can appeal to students with different learning styles.
- easy to revise or update materials
- you can really access and organize a lot of material through links. For example, see how much material is available for Unit 3 of HIS 102.
- hyperlinks allow access to materials from anywhere on the web
- save trees and money (no copying costs)
- embed (or link) media on your web pages
- develop/improve students’ technical capabilities by helping then become more
comfortable navigating online materials - use of technology in your teaching supports the college’s mission of educating students to be successful in the twenty-first century (NOVA’s Strategic Vision 2015 and the Achieving the Dream initiative)
- You can be creative!
Second, what kind of materials should you consider putting on the web?
- syllabus
- assignment instructions
- assignment examples
- study guide
- primary text or other document
- course content (can be in many different forms)
- supplemental course content
Third, your course materials can be in a variety of formats.
- text
- audio
- images
- video
Finally, here are some ideas for putting your text materials on the web.
a Word document on the web. For example, here is a student paper example (*.doc) from one of my courses. But there are some problems doing this.
a *.PDF version of a document on the web. There are pros and cons to doing this. You can create a *.PDF from Word, Wordperfect, Acrobat, etc. You can also use a scanner to copy and create a *.PDF.
a Google document can be published to the web. These can be created by uploading something from your computer or by composing right in Google. See screen shot 2. Images and some formatting options are available. There is also an ability to collaborate on these documents. Screen shot 1. Note that you can also create a spreadsheet, drawing, presentation as a google doc, and there are templates that you can use.
a blog, such as Wordpress or blogspot/blogger (that requires a gmail account). These are pretty simple to set up if you choose a template, and they can be easy to customize. What is nifty is that with a little know-how you can turn a blog into a pretty-good looking website (w/o blog posts, etc). See the Udvar-Házy example.
a social-networking tool such as Ning, used by Michael Krimmer for GIS
web pages, HTML documents.
Remember there is a wide range of web pages
- a simple, single page of text
- a single page of text with images
- a single page with more evolved design
- a more complicated website (with some interactive features)
- an entire course
- You choose what you are going to create based on your specific learning objectives.
Create web pages with:
- Word (well, if you really have to....)
- Dreamweaver (there are templates that you can use, but there is a learning curve). This is expensive but is available from the college.
- Sea Monkey
As noted above, your web pages can include:
- text
- video
- audio
- images
- interactive features
- design and stylistic elements
Get your web pages onto the web
- You have novanet space
- From a campus computer, you map to your novanet folder and just move files there.
- From home, you use a ftp program, such as Core FTP LE. See the Screen shot.
- PS. See our recommended, free Digi tools.
A warning from Project Pedagogy: Some Ideas for Better Teaching, 2nd ed
"As with everything else that you do with your teaching, from developing your syllabus, to planning your lectures, to grading student work, you should plan on investing some time if you wish to use technology effectively in teaching your courses. If you are going to spend hours on creating a great syllabus, then you need to be aware that it is going to take some time to make technology work for you and your students."
A caveat
Note that in the past few years the web has evolved from web 1.0 (a static information site that many faculty are still trying to master ) to web 2.0 (an increasingly socially interactive location) that is dominated by the widespread use of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and even YouTube.
PS. There was no notice of Blackboard in this presentation.