Rowland's COMP4040 Blog

Feedback on the module

2006-04-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody

It would be helpful for me if you could comment on this post by giving me:

Up to three things about the module that you think helped you in your learning

Up to three ways that the module might be changed to help you in your learning

thanks

Rowland

Design Methodologies and Techniques

2006-04-10T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody

The information for session 10 "Design Methodologies and Techniques" is available on the web at:

http://www.worc.ac.uk/LTMain/Rowland/COMP4040/activities/session10/index.html

If you want to take a look you can see how we are going to tackle the information needed for Learning Outcome 5.

best of luck

Rowland

Module feedback

2006-04-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody

Please can you comment on this post to say:

What you think about using blogs and wikis in the course

How you have used these tools

thanks

Rowland

Developing grade criteria for LOs 3,4,&5

2006-04-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody

In session 09 we need to get to grips with these criteria so that you can establish your claim for a grade.

It has been suggested that there is some overlap between LO1 and LO3 in that usability and accessibility come into both.

As usability and accessibility are such big issues with web sites it might be better to concentrate on them in detail for LO3 and make reference to this in LO1. We might also look in more detail at the idea of exploring accessibility and usability which might involve such things as accessibility checking and devising a usability questionnaire

Perhaps this is something we should discuss in session 09

best wishes

Rowland

Learning outcomes 3, 4 & 5

2006-03-15T05:49:00.000-08:00

Hi every body

I have put some ideas for the criteria for these learning outcomes on the wiki and repeated them below.

You may want to comment on the wiki or by commenting on this post.

Learning outcome 3: "Explore the usability and accessibility of a selection of web sites"

Factors we may need to consider:

what do we mean by usability and accessibility?

how do we measure them and what are the issues with this?

what criteria do we use to select our web sites and what do we mean by a selection?

what do we expect as an output when we have explored the web sites?

Learning outcome 4: "Illustrate effective web site design using web pages you have developed"

Factors we may need to consider:

what is effective web site design?

what quantity and quality do you need demonstrate?

what evidence do you have that your design is effective?

Learning outcome 5: "Support your use of methodologies and design techniques with critical analysis of their appropriate use"

Factors we may need to consider:

what are the appropriate methodologies and design techniques for web design?

how can you show that they are appropriate or not?

give a critical analysis of how you have used them in your own work.

Help with CSS

2006-03-07T02:13:00.000-08:00

Hi Steve and Jane

There is an excellent tutorial about CSS at w3.schools.com. It takes you through the basics and tells you beforehand what you need to know before taking the tutorial.

It also has tutorials on these preparatory materials so if you need to know a bit about HTML works first then there is a tutorial on this.

Please take a look and let me know if this is any help.

If you want further help try putting css tutorials into Google and it will come up with a number of other tutorials which you might find useful.

Hope this helps

Rowland

Session 06 and beyond

2006-03-03T00:55:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody

The material for session 06 is now on the web, please let me know by email if there are any issues with it.

Remember that you are doing this session on-line and you have effectively two weeks to do it as the next week is is Learning Week when there is not taught session. I will see you again on Tuesday 21st March.

I have checked the criteria for learning outcome 2 on the wiki and I think we can go ahead with them as they are.

I have also added the rest of the learning outcomes to the criteria page and I will be adding some more detail and ideas about these over the next two weeks. I will post information on this blog when I have done so.

Please feel free to contact me by email if you want to discuss anything about the course. If the issues are of general use I will put something about them on this blog.

See you soon

Rowland

Session 05 - Reflections

2006-03-01T01:39:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody

On the whole I thought the session went well.

# We looked at the criteria for LO2 and reached a concensus that I now need to check against the master's criteria.

# The claim for LO2 was postponed to be done over the next week.

# We looked at aspects of CSS and got going on writing our own web pages using CSS for formatting.

# Everybody now has a web site to publish their work

We need to:

# Make sure that we all have access to each other's web sites by putting them on the wiki page that already contains links to blogs and emails
at http://comp4040.pbwiki.com/module%20blogs
I will transfer these as links to the main module pages

# work on making a claim for LO2 over the next week

Please note the details of future sessions:

# Tuesday 8th March will be an on-line session - details to follow on the web site but the general theme will be looking at accessibility and usability and continuing with CSS

# Tuesday 15th March is in Learning week so there is no taught session, please use the time to catch up with work.

# Tuesday 22nd March we will be having a face-to-face session in room 113

You might like to add your own reflections by commenting on this blog post or putting comments on your own blog.

Please feel free to contact me over the next few weeks if I can be of any help. Email is the preferred method. If the information is of value to the whole group I will, with your permission, publish it on this blog.

best wishes

Rowland

Session 04

2006-02-22T01:32:00.000-08:00

I thought that the session went well and was a good example of how some activities e.g. reaching a concensus are better done face to face.

In this session we looked at the grade criteria for the first learning outcome and spent some time agreeing it and making sure that it was sequential in the sense that similar ideas occured at all levels so that we could see a progression through the grades.

This gives us a useful pointer about setting up the other learning outcome criteria in that it looks as if it is best to start at the pass levle and then build from there, that way we can set up a progression through the grades more easily. However we might want to add additional points at higher levels.

The final version was placed on the wiki and we all made our own copy to work with.
We agreed that the assignment would be done as a series of web pages which in themselves could illustrate good design but they would also need a rationale which could be comments in the code.

The claim for a grade might take the form:

* select parts of the assessement criteria
* link from them to the argument for getting that grade
* link to the evidence to support that argument

I need to look at the criteria against the generic Master's criteria to check compatibility.

It would be useful if you could continue with your claim for a grade over the next week.

Next week we will look at LO2, start on putting together a web site and loking at the issues of useability and accessibility.

Please feel free to comment on your perceptions of how the session went.

Rowland

How did it go on-line?

2006-02-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody,

How did the on-line session work for you? I found it quite time consuming to look at all the blogs and the wiki to see what changes had been made. Some of you seem to have done better than me.

I started to put together some ideas on the wiki for how we might make a claim for a grade against the criteria. This is in its early stages and needs a lot of work but I would like to discuss it our next session.

I have also amalgamated the work you have done on grade criteria so that we can start to finalise it.

Please let me what it was like to do a session without face to face contact. What were the advantages and disadvantages?

How do we know when we have done something?

2006-02-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody

I have been thinking about how we will know that we have made any changes to the wiki. It is quite difficult to spot what the changes are just by inspection. I know that you can look at updates and from those can expand the text to get a good idea of what changes have been made but perhaps we need to say something as well.

Would it be a good idea if we signaled what we had done by a weekly blog post, on our own blog?

For example if you go to my wiki page you will find that I have been working on two things:

a simple example of a rationale for an assignment grade

a start to putting together a procedure for developing a set of criteria for web design and then applying them to a web site

Activities for Session 03 [Feb 14th - 21st]

2006-02-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

Here are some preliminary details of the suggested activities for Week 3. I will put more information on the module web site as soon as possible.

create a preliminary set of grade criteria for the second learning outcome and further adapt the grade criteria for the first learning outcome.

start to develop a rationale for claiming a particular level of achievement in the first learning outcome, linking this to examples of work on your blog and any other sources.

start to develop a rationale for claiming a particular level of achievement in the second learning outcome, linking this to examples of work on your blog and any other sources.

do some further work on some of questions about web design on the top page of the wiki

Where to post your evaluations etc.

2006-02-10T01:05:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody

I think it work better if we post our material to our own blog and then others can comment on it there. It is going to get confusing if we all post to one another's blogs.

Hope this is OK to with everybody. If you are not sure about this please email me at r.gallop@worc.ac.uk

best wishes

Rowland

Critic on web page

2006-02-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

Few comments on this site http://chennai.bsnl.co.in/ :

Contrast colour sequence
Too many blank spaces
Controversy of font sequence and size
No standard format found from the home pages to all over the links.
Eg. http://www.bsnl.co.in/bsnl_brandnames.htm
http://chennai.bsnl.co.in/chennai/contents.html

Note : This if one of the official web site of India. ( Tamilnadu )

My Rating on this site : Very Poor

Tasks for this week outside sessions

2006-02-08T00:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody

We decided that next week we would not have a face to face session but we would work on-line. I will prepare some activities by next monday. Any problems can be sent to me by email and if they are possible general issues I will put them on the blog. Watch out for another blog message about this later on in the week or the start of next week.

"Home work" was to do a minimum of one more site evaluations each and to comment on at least one of each of the other's critique i.e. five in all.

You might also want to take a look at the criteria for the first learning outcome on the wiki and see what you think about what others have said. If you make changes to the wiki it might be an idea to make a short blog post to say so, perhaps with a live link to the wiki as I have done here.

Adding an image from Powerpoint

2006-02-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

If you create a diagram in PowerPoint and save it a JPEG you can then upload it to the blog

My reflections on the session

2006-02-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
I was pleased to meet you all and look forward to working with you on the module. I thought the first session went well and you were given the opportunity to get to grips with the some of the technologies we will be using in the module.

My suggested program for the session was a little ambitious so we will need to do the web site evaluation activities in the next session.

I hope that everybody now feels confident to use a blog and a wiki and we will discuss the further use of these in the next session.

best wishes

Rowland

Please introduce yourself

2006-01-30T08:02:00.000-08:00

Before you respond to this post make sure that you have joined Blogger and created your own blog. You will then be able to comment on this post by selecting the option which automatically includes your name.

Please reply to this post by saying a little about yourself. I have given an example of this in my comment.

Please say who are and how much experience you have had of web design and the web.

What do you think of this website?

2006-01-03T06:25:00.000-08:00

You can reply to this post by using the comment facility.

Write a short comment to say what you think of the website and any potential advantages and disadvantages you think might arise from its format.

What is this blog for?

2005-12-05T04:36:00.000-08:00

This is my blog to support the master's module comp4040 which is running in the spring semester. Each of the students will also have a blog and all of the blogs will be aggregated through bloglines.

I am going to extend this post to see if the formatting works better.