Position Paper 1 & Position Paper 2 for EDCI 632

Position Paper 1

      The purpose to establish this educational website should be clear and remember in designer's mind deeply. It will influence the designer's design style and format. This goal also needs to consider the potential target audiences. When the designer understands who will be his/her main audiences. This site may just design for one classroom or other people including other students on the same school, students linking from other schools, and people who interested to the content. Different audiences should design different layout style for attracting their attentions.

Content

      The content will influence how to design a web site too. Some topics are easy to find related resources with various materials and some are not. More resources can be found, more vivid idea can be created by the designer. If the content is not much, the designer will not easy to form an idea about his/her layout. The content is also related to the goal and target audience. The recognition of people in the different age is different. For children, the content should be easy to understand and put more multimedia materials for understanding the content. For Adult, the designer may need to offer more references for further knowledge. Proper content will help the audience catch the idea or learn the knowledge quickly and systematically.

Attractive layout and simple navigation

      An attractive layout will help audiences like to stay in this web site and enjoy its environment. It will establish audiences' first image. This will encourage they go back in the future. Clear navigation also helps audiences easily find the topic that he/she wants . No one likes to lose in the Internet jungle. Simple navigation helps them stay on the track.

Interaction

      One characteristic of the Internet is interaction. Audiences are not only to get the information from the web site, but also can give their feedback. Using e-mail or interactive program, their responses can help the web site to provide better content or service. Some designers can cooperate with programming engineer for offering interactive program like Java applets, CGI, Flash, Shockwave, etc. These programs can be embedded on the web page and send the response to the web server or to the audiences themselves. The use of program may not only focus on the education, but also provide entertainment for the audiences. Proper interactive program will provide better learning environment to the audiences.

Copyright and authority

      Since it is an educational web site, to educate the audiences to respect the copyright is important. For the designer, if the content he/she could not create it, he/she needs to follow the regulation of the copyright law to use any material he/she wants to put on the website. Furthermore, the designer should get the authority from the owner of copyright as possible. This will encourage everyone to create more materials if his/her copyright is respected.

Position Paper 2 (Back to top)

What are the 5 most important things for a teacher to think about when using the Internet in the classroom? Why are these the most important? (Think about all the different issues of use as well as the practical considerations involved with using the Internet.)

Although the Internet can link most of classroom, the budget limites the quantity of computers linking to the Internet. Since the Internet is a tool for classroom and not for each student, the instructor may accept this fact and consider this limitation in his regulation of the Internet use in his/her classroom. Here is my idea about the 5 most important things for a teacher to think about when using the Internet inthe classroom:

Demonstration

I hope the display card of computer supporing TV-out function (e.g. STB velocity 128 ) and we can just use the larger size TV for demonstration without having an expensive projector. This consideration may be done before purchasing. Of course, the school may has other supplementary plans for this. Anyway, using the Internet to demonstrate is very important for the instructor or students. For instructor, he/she can display extra instructional materials which he/she found on the Internet for his/her course. For students, the students can show their supporting materials for their researches. The instructor and students can cooperate to establish an Internet resource center using browser's bookmark function or put them on the website of classroom for sharing their references. Of course, we may put these materials in our hard drives, but it will occupy the space of hard drive. The best way is let us use them by linking to their website. Although the website may become a dead link, looking for the other sites to replace it will not so difficult because the huge Internet society is our database and we don't need to worry about losing one link of it.

Resource limitation/Resource equity

For now, there are not too many computers in the classroom linking to the Internet. So, the most important thing for the instructor is to set a usage regulation with his/her students. This regulation can be written by the students themselves. The instructor can help them to make sure what is the best way for everybody's use. Under this policy, every student should have the same opportunity to access to the Internet. This also can give students chances to listen to other students' voice and respect other students' needs.

Cooperation

Cooperation may be the other consideration for the instructor. The instructor may assign some group research or exploration projects to encourage students' cooperation. Although there is only one person can operate the computer, in actually, every one can share the use of computer. While waiting the Internet to display the web page, the group can discuss with their project. By this way, students not olnly can learn to cooperate with other group or students, but also increase the chance that every one can work with the Internet.

Unsuitable use

One of bad dream of the Internet for many parents is their children may access to unsuitable websites and make bad influence to them. Although there are some software can filter the erotic, violent, and unsuitable content, no one can do it 100%. The instructor may use the peer pressure or advice for advoiding them to browse unsuitable web site. Even though, the instructor also need to pay his/her attention to help them not focus on this kind of content.

Supporting team/staff

The Internet's change is quickly. The instructor may aslo need some supports from his/her colleague or friends. For curriculum, theachers can share their experience for each other to improve their teaching. For content, they can share the experience about new weesites which can help their teaching. For techonolgy, they can share the experience how to use the new technology in their courses. In this new technology era, no one has time to follow each new knowledge. Focusing on personal professional field and receiving extra from others' will help teachers to shorten time to catch up with new development of knowledge.

Reference Articles:

The Internet Pyramid for Elementary Students by Ann Johnston
http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/johnston.htm
Using Technology in My Classroom by Alan D. Sills
http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/sills.htm
Collaborative Internet Learning: Strategies and Success Stories by Joanne Tate
http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/tate.htm
What The Internet Can Do For You by Pat Tilson
http://www.teachersworkshop.com/twshop/comments.html
Active Learning on the Web by Bernie Dodge
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/active/ActiveLearningk-12.html

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