| 1:30 - 4:50 Winter 2006 |
INSTRUCTIONAL TEAMJane BlakelockEmail: jane.blakelock@wright.edu Office: 453 Millett Hall Phone: 775-3715 Office Hours: T-TH 2:30 pm -4:00 pm & by appt. Zach Crawford Graduate Assistant contact at: crawford.5@wright.edu 
|
|
texts:
|
|
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND RATIONALE
of the COURSE
LA 399 trains a team of students to help Liberal Arts faculty learn to use technology in their teaching and teaching-related work. Because of the proliferation of the Internet and web technologies to share information and images, the class focuses mostly on web design and related skills. Although Wright State's Center for Teaching and Learning and CaTS offer a number of academic support services and technology workshops, many Liberal Arts faculty would benefit from more customized assistance. Staff and faculty themselves who have web responsibilities are also welcome to take the class. When space permits, non-employee students interested in the skill set but not the intern program may also be admitted.
Key topics and activities will include:
-
examining current Liberal Arts and humanities web page use to determine which skills and programs commonly serve office and classroom activities, and are supported by WSU web servers & networking
-
considering various learning styles and skill levels among technology users -- both faculty and student -- and how this affects approaches to learning and using technology
-
using Photoshop for web basics: logos, backgrounds, customized photo galleries
- preparing digital images for web use
-
using FrontPage as a simple html editor (only those parts that do not create horrendous coding)
-
using FTP for transferring files to the web
-
using CGIfile (simple forms)
-
using ZipCentral (large-file compression)
-
using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for more efficient control of appearance variables (font styles, table placement, background images & more)
-
making Web templates and pages that are useful, well-edited, esthetically pleasing, accessible to the largest number of users, and free of copyright infringements
Students who successfully complete LA 399 during the fall term are eligible to work as Student Technologists Assisting Faculty or STAF Interns for the remainder of their time at WSU -- or may themselves be faculty or staff who are taking on the responsibility of developing and maintaining web pages for their programs.
- SPECIAL NOTES
-- for COM Majors: A STAF internship fulfills the COM major required internship.
-- for ENG Majors: LA 399 can be substituted for ENG 494 credit toward Professional/Tech Writing Certificate.
TEXTS
In addition to the texts listed above, Links to more materials will be provided, along with handouts, throughout the course.
COURSE WORK - CLASS FORMAT AND MAJOR FOCUS
Most class time will be devoted to the following key areas:
- Basics and a bit more of CSS as a major design/layout tool
- Basics of FrontPage html editing, using it as an editor and examining the code often
- introduction to Dreamweaver html editing may also be possible
- Photoshop, basics and intermediate work in manipulating and creating graphics
The two major projects are: 1.) independent development of a personal home page and 2.) collaborative designing, re-designing, or improvement of a Liberal Arts web site or related project.
Most work is done during class time in a hands-on workshop environment, with a small amount of "homework" to reinforce, retain, and enhance skills covered in class. By the end of each class, each student adapts from the suggested homework according to his or her progress at that point:
- The selected work continues or advances skills featured during each class.[Brief = 20-60 minutes outside of class time.]
- Homework activity is attempted by Fri, w/in 48 hours following class, to allow time to request (via email) help from instructor or GA before the next class period.
- Getting stuck is fine, but report the problem you are having by
emailing Zach and Jane at the addresses listed above
by Friday at 6 pm.
- We will email suggestions, meet w/ you when possible, and/or address the problem during the next class period, when you will
- share your progress w/ the class, along w/ your report of challenges and insights about your methods of learning.
-
40% - weekly independent work: earn an A/B here by reporting routinely on/sharing your progress
-
60% - personal web page and/or CoLA web page development: earn an A/B here by showing sufficient progress on projects we will plan together as the course proceeds
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION
Attendance is mandatory, with each 3-plus hour class covering a significant portion of course material and involving workshopping and important peer and instructor interaction. Please notify the instructors of known conflicts in advance. More than one absence suggests the need to consider dropping the class. Faculty and staff may make arrangements for some flexibility re: attendance when departmental or program needs interfere. We will then arrange meeting time with Zach or Jane to make up for missed class time. All students are encouraged to request meeting time for additional assistance with any LA399-related learning concern. All students should check WSU email regularly for possible correspondence about the class -- the class also shows up under Academics/My Courses in the WINGS portal, another avenue for messages and sharing files and links. If you need computing resource access while on campus, the campus computer classroom schedule lists classroom locations, times occupied by classes, times open for general student use.