The Teaching and Learning of Web Authoring AUTHORING

The Teaching and Learning of Web Authoring AUTHORING programming by non-programmers Some ideas in this Power. Point come from Dr. Lai Yiu Chi of HKIEd

The Curricula l CIT Design Factors for Presenting Information on the Internet l Web Authoring and Simple Web Management (the second most popular elective (probably the first next year) l l Computer Literacy l l Taught in most secondary schools How about those in ASL and AL curriculum? How about those in primary schools? Informal curriculum: lots of Web page competitions

The Issues l l l A very critical change in IT (Web technology) in the last century A “must” IT knowledge after word processing, graphics and presentation in IT subjects A very integrated topic l Multimedia, communication (FTP), programming (HTML), information presentation (layout, graphics …), dynamic web pages (database, server-side computing), planning and designing

What are our T&L focuses? l “Hard” technology skills: l l Web authoring? HTML programming? Web technology? “Soft” technology skills: l l l Web design/structure concepts? Communication/presentation skills? Web site planning/management?

Warm-up l l Read the related CIT curriculum (citwebauthoring. pdf) Surf the Web sites provided (in the folder webresources) Install the 1 st page 2000 (a HTML editor) Install the DENIM system

Word Processing vs Web Authoring What for? Paper publishing Electronic publishing Files Text and graphics combined into a single file Text, graphics and animations linked by a set of files Saving the files On one’s own hard disk In Web servers Delivery Transportation, Printing media Network, Browser Technology skills To be discussed

Discussion (1) Software skills – Word Processing for Web Publishing l l Advantages and disadvantages using word processing for Web publishing? Why do some teachers use MS Word/Front. Page Express for constructing a Web?

Discussion (2) Software skills – Web Authoring vs HTML programming l l Advantages and disadvantages using Web Authoring tools (e. g. Dreamweaver, Front. Page) vs HTML editors? To some extents, some teachers insist on teaching HTML. What are your opinions?

Discussion (3) CIT Curriculum Analysis of the document l l Identify the hard and soft IT skills involved? Suggest proper teaching software for each topic in terms of availability and user-friendly Explain how you deal with “Introduction to dynamic Web pages”. What are your experiences or difficulties encountered in teaching this part?

Discussion (4) the Design of a Web site l Do you agree? l l Web Publishing involves: Problem solving, information searching, decision making, modeling … How do you teach your students to build a prototype of the design? l l l Visualisation tools such as Inspiration 7. 5 Paper Prototyping the DENIM system

What is paper prototyping? l Resouces: http: //www-106. ibm. com/developerworks/library/us-paper/ l l Paper prototyping is a method of usability testing that is useful for Web sites, Web applications, and conventional software Advantages: l l No coding and therefore any students can do Creativity not hindered by any software (“canned design” or template)

Informal Tools For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design l Download the DENIM system from the product site: http: //guir. berkeley. edu/projects/denim/ l Study the user guide http: //guir. berkeley. edu/projects/denim/docs/tutorial. html

Discussion (5) the informal curriculum l l Surf the following student work. Comment what our students can achieve in Web design and construction. Web sites: http: //www. jsit. net http: //www. ssrc. hku. hk/sym/97/schools. html http: //www. rotary. edu. hk/memo/0102/link/epaward

Discussion (6) Teachers’ difficulties/problems l l l Lack of knowledge and experiences in Web design? What are they? Lack of hardware, Web servers? Lack of software, client-server computing (dynamic data)? Any other suggestions? How do you deal with these difficulties/ problems?

Conclusion l Our focuses are …