week 7: Frick and Boling ch. 5&6

In the final 2 chapters of the Frick and Boling book, building a web prototype is discussed along with assessing and maintaining the site. 

The article starts off with a list of facts that must be considered: First, the web is on the internet, so if the students can’t get on the internet, they can’t complete a technology assignment.  We, as instructors, have to have access to a server to store our web resources.  Second, the web is based in HTML, but can support other kinds of files.  Third, the web was not designed to be interactive with more than a hyperlink, so writing code will be necessary at some point. 

Once those three are understood, it is possible to move forward into building the actual prototype with limitations and alternatives.  They look at things like natural language dialogues in a classroom and trying to recreate it in a web format.  It looks at things like conference calls and other face to face from a distance ways to interact for a classroom, to try to mimic the natural language flow again. 

The authors move forward from there to give web solutions that don’t need coding—like sharing documents through services like google docs, email, or oncourse formats.  Then, there are always the internal hyperlinks in a document that will lead you to other places as well.  For feedback, going through discussion boards, blogs, blackboard, instant messaging, or instant feedback built into a quizzing feature. 

The last part of this chapter discusses using templates for web development, like we are currently doing in dreamweaver.  It allows faster prototyping, but does have limitations since it is a template. 

In the last chapter, there are important things to test, like bugs.  IF a site is filled with technical errors, no one will want to use it.  Next, make a matrix for the testers so there is a way to see what is expected.  When maintaining the site, there is many things to consider, like updating, administration, design, programming, error logs, links, all the things that irritate a user when they stop working.

For the first chapter of the week, developing the computer prototype, it seemed to be a lot of stuff I have already done, without even thinking about it.  Most seems to be, once again, common sense.  They are also things that I have noticed happening in my everyday life with my students, and ways I already communicate with them.  I did scan a lot of that chapter after I realized that I had already done much of the information contained therein, but as seen in the summary above, I did still gather a ton of information.

On page 108, there is a useful chart that breaks down what the factors of influence can be, the issues that would need to be considered, and what the test needs to be.  As you may tell from my previous blogs, I like charts and having things laid out in a clear, easy to read format.  Again, with the matrix on page 110, it’s a chart—my cup of tea.  The maintenance section is what caught my eye, because that is where I struggle.  Generally, with the projects I have created for this Maters Program, I barely have had time to develop it, much less maintain it later.  There is a couple that I have tried to maintain, but it becomes increasingly difficult as I continue to develop more materials.