Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference
Teaching, Learning, & Technology
The Connected Classroom
April 7-9, 2002
Enhancing Classroom Teaching with Online Web-Based Tools
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By: Raj Desai, Ted Loso |
Abstract
Materials developed for a web class, used in the regular classroom, improved classroom delivery significantly. A combination of web material and classroom lecture may be the ideal combination for some subjects. We will show how some of the web tools can be used to your advantage in the regular classroom.
Description
We have both taught web courses for the past two years. We see the advantages of using web tools in our regular classroom teaching. In fact after teaching one course on the web for the first time, I realized that the course was not suited to be taught on the web. However the material that I had developed for the web course was ideally suited for use in my classroom. It improved the classroom course delivery significantly. Also tools such as grade reporting on the web can make the teachers work a lot easier, because you do not have students coming to your office asking for the grades. They can view them online anytime and from anywhere. The course syllabus, power-point presentations, and other class handouts can also be put online. Again the advantage of putting course material online is that it is available to the student at any time.
Make sure that when you create a web page that you get to the point on the first page, or at least give people an idea of what your site is about. You should also make it easy for the viewer to find the information for which they are looking. Ask yourself what things people might be looking for and try to make those things accessible from the main page. Offer a way of contacting somebody in case they don’t find what they are looking for. There are many different web page editors available in the market today that can be used in order to quickly create a functional Web page. Some general guidelines to follow are: Split your information into logical sections, make sure your starting page is attractive and well laid out, try to have a consistent theme throughout your entire site, try to use colors, styles, and fonts that complement each other. Test your pages on different size screen, with the images turned off, a different color resolution, and a different browser. Make sure your site is relatively quick to load, no matter what you put on it. As a rule the page should not be more than 50K. Under normal conditions, this page will load in a few seconds yet allow some fairly good use of graphics. If you have more material, consider separating it on separate pages. Graphics can be stored in a JPEG or GIF format. JPEG format uses “lossy” compression and you can decide the trade off between file size and quality. GIF images will ensure that the images display exactly the same all the time. Use graphics and gadgets sparingly. Some common things that get overused are excessive graphics and background images.
Proceeding