Web Page Design- Advanced
3 semester hours graduate credit
Revised 03/02/2008

Course Description:

            Setting up a classroom school website for student, staff, and parent use.  Hands on experience creating web pages using a variety of software and elements of good design.  Learning what is involved with setting up, maintaining and publishing a classroom website.

 Course Overview:

            Students will use and evaluate a variety of web page authoring tools, from HTML, to various commercial packages and template type products.  Elements of good web page design will be discussed, as well as what it takes to create and maintain a useful classroom web site.  Students will be shown how to use digital cameras, scanned images, downloaded pictures, etc., to enhance their classroom site. Discussion will include how teacher and student created web pages can be most useful.  The class will investigate what content should and should not be included, including classroom resources, publishing student work, electronic portfolios, etc.

 Objectives:

            As a result of this course, the participant will be able to: 

·        Evaluate school/classroom web pages

·        Evaluate and compare various means of creating web pages with authoring software, HTML and templates

·        Determine hardware and software requirements for web site creation

·        Understand the requirements of web site maintenance

·        Determine and appreciate aspects of good web page design

·        Create a classroom web page, ready for posting online, complete with relevant resources   

Teaching Methods / Class Format:

            A hands-on approach with instructor’s guidance will be used.  Lectures and demonstrations will be implemented to introduce new concepts, but learning will be self-paced and individualized. 

Texts:

Gonzalez, James. Multimedia Web Authoring, A Design Guide, [online] http://www.geekmanuals.com/designIndex.htm, 2003.

Stubbs, Barksdale, and Crispen. Web Page Design. South Western Publishing, (ISBN O538-68997-8), 2000.

            Presley, Brown, and Malfas. A Guide to Authoring Using Microsoft Frontpage. Lawrenceville Press, (ISBN 1-58003-041-6), 2001. 

Class Resources/Required Readings:

            Vincent Flanders Web Pages the Suck.com.  [Online] Available at http://www.websitesthatsuck.com  2007. 

Flanders, Vincent. Son of Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design, Sybex., 2002. (ISBN 0-7821-4020-3) 

Dave’s Web Site, Dave Kristula. Web Site Design Tutorial. [Online] available at http://www.davesite.com/webstation/web-site-design/ 

Dave’s Web Site, Dave Kristula.  HTML Interactive Tutorial. [Online] available at http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/ 

Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask  [Online]  available at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html 

Flanders. Vincent and Willis, Michael.  Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design Sybex, 1998.  (ISBN 078212187X) 

Class Website:

Welcome to Classroom Web Page Design, Joe Ambrosia.  http://www.edbqhs.org/highschool/webquest_class/webdesign_class/creating_webs.htm 

Units of Work:

·        Web page evaluation

·        Layout and design of web pages

·        Web authoring software evaluation

·        Web site content

·        Web hosting

·        Formatting images and documents for web site use  

Class Assignments:

            Assignments will be given by instructor to reinforce the units of work.  Each student will be responsible for completing an independent project, which will enhance his/her classroom curriculum.  Projects will be presented to the class, and also presented in written form to be shared with the class. 

Attendance Policy:

              Students are required to attend all classes and to participate in class discussions, small group activities, experimental and experiential group exercises and projects. Attendance is divided into two sessions per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, for each of five days.  Students must attend all sessions.  If absence is due to a family emergency, an attempt will be made to make up the session at a later time, if possible. 

Academic Honesty and Integrity Statement:

Students are expected to maintain academic honesty and integrity as students at Aurora University by doing their own work to the best of their ability. Academic dishonesty (cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, etc.) will result in the student's receiving a zero for that test, assignment, or paper. 

Final Examination Policy:

             A final, culminating activity is required in all off-campus courses.  Each student will be responsible for completing an independent project, which will enhance his/her classroom (i.e. technique, curriculum, technology use).  Each project shall be presented in digital form at the end of the course and shared verbally with the class. All projects will be posted to the participants respective website or the instructors website. 

Evaluation:

            Grading will be based on the quality of work with components weighted as follows. Grades are differentiated on the basis of quality. Quantity alone is not a significant factor for grade differentiation.