Week 4

This week was the first week of presentations and WE were up first!!

The internet and Web site development

I found this assessment really interesting. I enjoyed catering it for a younger audience as it gave me the opportunity to find some really fun resources and videos that can help with teaching.

I found a great video that explains what the Internet is in an interesting way. Today, explanations can get very complicated with all the new opportunities the internet provides so this video really took it back to an easy to understand level. It was completely comprised of clips from news headlines, 60minutes sort of shows and other documentaries that were made in the early 90s when the internet was really taking off. It was catered for the mass market and it was almost funny because the things they were saying seem like common sense as we have all grown up with a basic knowledge of the internet, it does however get the message across fantastically for a stage 4 or 5 audience.

I was interested in learning about authoring software because I didn’t really know what it meant. I then realise that I use different types of authoring software all the time when developing assignments etc.

To explain the World Wide Web I thought it was important to identify that the WWW is different from the internet as the two terms often are used interchangeably. The WWW exists within the internet and you can be using the internet without using the WWW. To get this message across I found a video that explains the WWW and how it works using a hand drawn stop motion animation. I thought this was very effective and I really liked how it explained the WWW without using an actual computer in the presentation.

I was really excited to be able to take about website development. In the previous blog I spoke about how passionate I was about it when I was in high school so to be able to break it down my own way that would be great for a stage 4 or 5 audience was really exciting to me.  Instead of finding a video I decided write my own design process that is simplified and easy to remember with 3 sections and 2 steps within each section. I made sure though that every essential element of designing is evident and I cross checked this with the HSC design and technology Major Design Project requirements. I thought if I am ensuring I am meeting the criteria for stage 6 students then my simplified development stages would definitely be more than adequate for stage 4 and 5 projects.

I feel our lesson went really well and it was great that we had a backup plan if there were any problems with computers. The students learnt at the end of the lesson how to identify the message and meaning of a webpage and the techniques web designers use to get this message across.