My thoughts of planning and developing a course website

I had a little bit experiences of creating websites last semester. In that class we focused on the tools that we can use. I mean I did not pay that much attention to the process of planning. I thought it was just that easy to create a website as long as you know how to use one of the web designing tools. After reading this chapter, I found that knowing how use a web designing tool is far away from creating a web. The author used so many pages only tell us one thing: the importance of planning for a website. This is also what I learned from the first chapter. Then how a make a good plan for a website? The author thinks it should include three steps:

First, it is important to assess the means. Assign the situation that we are in is the first step for creating a web site. We may want to do more, but sometime we maybe limited by the circumstance or tools that we can use. This is true that with the development of technology in internet and computer areas, people have more and more tools to choose for creating a website. This is good for educators to have more choices, however, nobody can use all the tools that existed nowadays. And each tool has its own advantage and disadvantage. Thinking about which tools we are familiar or what kind of help we can get from others should be considered first. As the author also mentioned that at the end of each step we may need to think about which tool we are going to use and how much effort we can do for a the websites that we are going to create.

Second, define the objectives. In the previous step we already understand what situation we are in. That is what we have in hand. Now it is time for us to figure out what we want to put in the web site. As such what goals you want to achieve, what is the content, what is your overall pedagogy, and what is the purpose for creating this web. That is like in the first step you know what kind of truck you have and this step you need to take a look at what goods you need to upload to the truck.

Third, it is time to plan the whole website. Since we already know where to go and what we have, now we can make a plan for the website. This step includes content inventory, site architecture, and navigation strategy. Here the most important part is site architecture, I think, because it is in this step that we will sort our contents and list them into an organizational architecture that will comfortably house our materials. Here comfortably means to it is convenient and effective to all the uses. The book offers us some examples of hierarchical which are the basic of a website. In fact, a good layout and design can help users navigate easily in a website.

We are supposed to have a clear map of the whole website at the end of the first stage: planning.

The second chapter is about how to develop content. What I learned in this chaoter is about how to gather the materials on the content list that we created in the planning stage. This is different from just putting the materials together because we need to pay attention to their formats. Most parts of a course website are texts, however, if we always use a same format of text, such as color, font, size, and writing style, it must be boring to the users. So we need to try making text fancy. Using different text formats appropriately may attract users’ attention and improve the effectiveness of learning. Since this a course website and students can get online to study, we should use the online resources assist both teaching and learning. As we all know, it is hard for us to incorporate a searching engine in our website, because of the database knowledge. So if we need we can get help from some departments, such as i-Tech office. In my opinion if the website does not include that many contents an search engine in not that useful. The next part of this chapter is talking about online discussion and quiz. Discussion is always a good way to facilitate students learning. It is a good opportunity for students to find out what they need to learn through discussion. However, online discussion is not that easy to hold except the technology support because not all the students like to attend the discussion because of the typing speed or other technology problems. About the online quiz, according to the author, if we only want to deliver a quiz is not that hard, but the thing is if we want to offer feedback to users, especially immediate feedback we need to find technology support too. Multimedia used in teaching and learning is a common thing nowadays. Normally designers will incorporate some graphics, audios, and videos into a website to make it more attractive. As the author said in this part, the thing we need to be careful about the formats of medias that we want to incorporate in a website. Graphics, for example, different format have different size to a same picture. Normally, we prefer the format of .giff and .jpeg because of the size and effectiveness. There are more we need to think about the format of other format because format does not only decide the size that needed, but also impact the time that users need to download them. Streaming video can solve the problem of downloading because it can allow users to watch the videos when they are downing them. The last part of this chapter is talking about the copyright, privacy and protection. These are the things we need to always remember when we are deal with internet. Some ways of protecting our own materials online are also introduced by the author, such as insert a html language of kioskmode=true” or add a watermark to the videos. However, if someone wants to steal your products they can always find a way to do that. There is not ways that can guarantee to protect anyone’s materials.

As I said above these all important for us to create a website and we need to pay attention to all the aspects that the author mentioned in these two chapters if we want to be professional.

Distance Learning, history, theories, and features.

Nowadays, distance learning is not that far away to everyone. Many schools, including universities and high schools, are offering distance courses. Different people may have different view of this technology, some may hold passive opinion, and others may think it is a good way or new way to teach? Or there are even other ideas at this point. However, no mater how you think about distance learning, it is growing now. And more and more people are involving distance learning, especially in recent years. So, in my opinion, we need to think about why the distance learning is increasing, instead of arguing or doubting.

First, what is the effectiveness of distance learning comparing with traditional class? This is the most important way can prove whether the distance learning is passive or active. Clark (1983) stated that there is no difference between the media that an instructor used for teaching. This means no mater what kind of delivering system an instructor used is not important. He also point out that the important thing is the content that is delivered to learners. Also, as what he said, the nutrition would maintain the same if you use a car to distribute the milk instead of a truck. I think his research explored that distance learning can do a same work as a traditional class.

Second, let us talk about the importance of distance learning. As I said in the first paragraph, it is the content decides the teaching effectiveness, not the media that instructors used for delivering. So the distance learning can do as well as traditional class. In fact, the distance learning can do more than traditional class. As we all know that, students have to live around schools for attending a class in traditional class. Otherwise they have to drive a lot. Many people were suffered from this before. Even sometimes they have to give it up. It is also a problem for some part-time students because there are always some conflicts between the work schedule and the course schedule. Traditional class can do nothing with this. However, there are no problems with distance learning under those situations. In fact, we can also find other ways to prove that distance learning is important, such as higher effectiveness, unlimited enrollment, and flexible schedules.

Third, what is the difference between distance learning and traditional learning? I think there are many differences between distance learning and traditional learning. The most obvious difference is that students and instructor do not have to meet physically during a class. Some other differences are distance learning is not like traditional class that teaching and learning process have to take place at the same time, there is almost no limited enrollment in a class, and distance learning can offer more freedom to learners, etc.

Another thing I am thinking about the distance learning and traditional learning is the relationship between them. Will the distance learning take the place of traditional learning? In my opinion, with the development of human education and technology, there will be more and more new ways of education, such as mobile-learning. All these new ways of teaching and learning have their own advantage and disadvantage. We cannot say one is better than the other. As an educator we should have the abilities to take advantages of all kinds of methods of education and maximized the effectiveness of learning and teaching.

Distance learning has a long history and its definition has been changing all the time. In my opinion, distance learning is a way of media-based, teachers and learners are separated and institution-based education. Here media-based means that the content is delivered by a kind of system, such as internet, radio, TV, satellite, or mail. The media through which a course is delivered kept changing all these years. And this is one of the reason that why the definition of distance learning is always changing. Here separate means that teacher and students do not need to meet each other physically like traditional classroom does. They can communicate at the same time and the learners still study under the help of teachers. Here institution-based is important because distance learning is different from self-learning. Self-learning is the way that students study by themselves without the help of instructors. However, learners are still learning from instructors in distance learning, instructors just do not have to give the lecture to learners face-to-face.

About the changing of definition, I think, the definition has to keep changing. This “changing” always means growing or moving forward. With the development of technology and educational theories, distance learning are becoming more and more effectiveness and popular. Of course, in the future people will explore more advanced technologies and theories which must push distance learning move forward. So whenever the distance learning moves to a new stage, the definition will change. Improving the effectiveness of distance learning will never stop.

The distance learning was developed from the correspondence course which appeared more than one hundred years ago. At the beginning, the courses had to be delivered by mail and the effectiveness was limited by the media: mail. Later on, at the beginning of last century, educators and researchers began to use radio to deliver the courses. This was a big progress because distance learning came into electronic time and distance learning began to be familiar to the Americans. The TV began to be imported into distance learning area after radio. People can not only listen to the instructors, but also see instructors. Furthermore, learners can see the instructors demonstrating instead of reading or listening. The universities and high schools which involved at the beginning distribute a lot for developing distance learning. During World War II the educational technology had a great chance to be developed because of the need of training thousands of soldiers in a short time. So after war researchers began to use those technologies into education including distance learning. Especially, when PC was developed in the early 1970s and internet in 1980s, distance learning became global, not only America. Nowadays, distance learning incorporated web-based, CD-ROM based, radio-based, and M-learning. Mobile learning is a new trend in this area now.

It seems that when we are talking about the distance learning we always talk about changing, such as technology changing, theories changing and effectiveness improving. However, no all the stuff the involved distance learning is changing. Learners, for example, did not change that much. At the beginning of distance learning, such as correspondence course time, learners had the freedom to control the studying pace and learning was not limited by time or place. Nowadays, learners can communicate with instructors synchronously or asynchronously because of the advanced media that employed in distance learning area, which is not different from the correspondence courses time that learners could only contact instructors through mails. However, I think this is the technology changing, but not learners changing. Learners still need to learn by their own, but the just distance learning makes learning more convenient and easier.

Clark, S. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Education Research, 53(4), 445-459.

Simonson, Michael R. (2006). Teaching and Learning at a Distance. 4-29.