Comments on: Teaching Website Design http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/ A Professional Development Journal Mon, 5 Jan 2009 23:42:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5 by: Genie Melone http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-70 Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:13:18 +1100 http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-70 Thanks Mike for all of that input into the Web course. I like the idea of building up to the client project in a more systematic way, and not just once but a couple of times. It also provides us with more scope to emphasise the importance of the whole process and all the little bits it entails. By the way what is an iterative approach? I got the gist of what you are proposing....which of course would need a really good structure- as you indicated. I think it would be good for us to all prepare templates, "scaffolding" for each of our areas and then come together to discuss and share what we have- I for one, am pretty ignorant of the entire process. I can guess what is going on from what the students are doing, but I do not know the relevant bits and how they all fit together. I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day]. Perhaps we could release things a bit at a time- like you said. I also like your idea of giving the whole process in the beginning with assistance- model gant charts, model documentation, model css etc, and then pulling it out bit by bit, so that they are not reliant on the structures and templates at the end. I was also thinking that I would like them to take a tape recorder into their interviews with their "real" clients and assess them on how they conduct the interview. I could make the client interview be in three parts- interview 1- for first project- where they have to make an improvement on their interview techniques for interview 2 [based on my/ our feedback ] and the same for interview 2 [feedback, and improvement for the real client interview]. I have been doing this in my CIV in Assessment and Workplace Training [they train 3 times and have to incorporate improvements each time into their next lesson] and it works a treat because it makes them actually take in the feedback and make an action on it. We could possibly do this in other areas too [css, html, design, graphics etc etc]. I am more than willing to spend time developing something that we/you could trial for next time. I love it that you are always thinking of ways to improve the situation. Cheers Genie Thanks Mike for all of that input into the Web course. I like the idea of building up to the client project in a more systematic way, and not just once but a couple of times. It also provides us with more scope to emphasise the importance of the whole process and all the little bits it entails.
By the way what is an iterative approach? I got the gist of what you are proposing….which of course would need a really good structure- as you indicated. I think it would be good for us to all prepare templates, “scaffolding” for each of our areas and then come together to discuss and share what we have- I for one, am pretty ignorant of the entire process. I can guess what is going on from what the students are doing, but I do not know the relevant bits and how they all fit together.
I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day]. Perhaps we could release things a bit at a time- like you said. I also like your idea of giving the whole process in the beginning with assistance- model gant charts, model documentation, model css etc, and then pulling it out bit by bit, so that they are not reliant on the structures and templates at the end.
I was also thinking that I would like them to take a tape recorder into their interviews with their “real” clients and assess them on how they conduct the interview. I could make the client interview be in three parts- interview 1- for first project- where they have to make an improvement on their interview techniques for interview 2 [based on my/ our feedback ] and the same for interview 2 [feedback, and improvement for the real client interview].
I have been doing this in my CIV in Assessment and Workplace Training [they train 3 times and have to incorporate improvements each time into their next lesson] and it works a treat because it makes them actually take in the feedback and make an action on it. We could possibly do this in other areas too [css, html, design, graphics etc etc].
I am more than willing to spend time developing something that we/you could trial for next time.
I love it that you are always thinking of ways to improve the situation.
Cheers
Genie

]]> by: Genie Melone http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-71 Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:16:45 +1100 http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-71 I said this in my comment :I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day]. And I meant to say :I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is NOT doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day]. I said this in my comment :I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day].
And I meant to say :I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is NOT doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day].

]]> by: Michael http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-72 Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:26:55 +1100 http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-72 Hey Genie, thanks for your comments! Yeah, I think your idea for the interviews is definately one that we could extend to the other skills (HTML, CSS etc), so that learners are able to build up the skills progressively through each project. (BTW: by iterative, i just meant that learners would cycle through the project lifecycle learning more through each cycle... and with your idea - adding the feedback from the previous cycle :-) Hey Genie, thanks for your comments! Yeah, I think your idea for the interviews is definately one that we could extend to the other skills (HTML, CSS etc), so that learners are able to build up the skills progressively through each project. (BTW: by iterative, i just meant that learners would cycle through the project lifecycle learning more through each cycle… and with your idea - adding the feedback from the previous cycle :-)

]]> by: botts http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-240 Tue, 22 Feb 2005 19:33:49 +1100 http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-240 i like the idea of the cyclic nature of things, but could you not teach the process in a linear fashion using two streams of teaching. i see you teaching project management whilst the students begin to manage the project they have to put in place, and then teach interviewing whilst having them do the interviews, and then teach the coding stuff again whilst they perform those tasks. at the end of the semester they will have completed the project with no end of semester rush as you would be controlling the pace of the learning and delivery. the whole semester then becomes one long project, rather than a series of shorter ones. i reckon too that students are perhaps more capable of learning high level concepts than we give them credit for. could you not also point them to resources that would enable them to have a degree of self paced learning and would therefore release you from some of the encumbrances of having to teach every little detail of the course. hmmmmmmmm have a great day botts i like the idea of the cyclic nature of things, but could you not teach the process in a linear fashion using two streams of teaching. i see you teaching project management whilst the students begin to manage the project they have to put in place, and then teach interviewing whilst having them do the interviews, and then teach the coding stuff again whilst they perform those tasks. at the end of the semester they will have completed the project with no end of semester rush as you would be controlling the pace of the learning and delivery. the whole semester then becomes one long project, rather than a series of shorter ones. i reckon too that students are perhaps more capable of learning high level concepts than we give them credit for. could you not also point them to resources that would enable them to have a degree of self paced learning and would therefore release you from some of the encumbrances of having to teach every little detail of the course.

hmmmmmmmm

have a great day

botts

]]> by: Michael http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-241 Wed, 23 Feb 2005 09:54:58 +1100 http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-241 Yeah, it's definitely possible (to have one long project) - but i reckon it'd introduce assessment difficulties. I mean, if the students are learning the skills/techniques/processes while doing their main assessment spread out through the semester - the client project - then it makes it very difficult for me to check the boxes saying that I am convinced (and have evidence to show) that this student is competent to do this on their own (ie. is the assessment valid?) The other problem that I see with one long project is that it doesn't provide an opportunity to introduce concepts slowly. For example, with technical stuff, when students start implementing their sites, they've got to learn the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, then more advanced versions of those (in terms of standards compliance, coding best-practices etc), as well as server side programming etc. etc. Maybe there's another way around these issues that you can think of? Any ideas? I probably didn't explain that clearly in the post above, but one of the main reasons for having the mini-projects is to provide an environment where students can build up their skills within their own zone of proximal development (ok, i just wanted to use that term to sound like I know what i'm talking about... i don't! I'm still learning! :-), until they get to the point where (theoretically) they can plan, manage and implement a client project on their own. That would provide valid evidence for assessment. Let me know what you think! (if you have time!) Yeah, it’s definitely possible (to have one long project) - but i reckon it’d introduce assessment difficulties. I mean, if the students are learning the skills/techniques/processes while doing their main assessment spread out through the semester - the client project - then it makes it very difficult for me to check the boxes saying that I am convinced (and have evidence to show) that this student is competent to do this on their own (ie. is the assessment valid?)

The other problem that I see with one long project is that it doesn’t provide an opportunity to introduce concepts slowly. For example, with technical stuff, when students start implementing their sites, they’ve got to learn the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, then more advanced versions of those (in terms of standards compliance, coding best-practices etc), as well as server side programming etc. etc. Maybe there’s another way around these issues that you can think of? Any ideas?

I probably didn’t explain that clearly in the post above, but one of the main reasons for having the mini-projects is to provide an environment where students can build up their skills within their own zone of proximal development (ok, i just wanted to use that term to sound like I know what i’m talking about… i don’t! I’m still learning! :-) , until they get to the point where (theoretically) they can plan, manage and implement a client project on their own. That would provide valid evidence for assessment.

Let me know what you think! (if you have time!)

]]> by: Michael http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-242 Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:02:24 +1100 http://www.absoludity.net/blog/teaching-website-design/#comment-242 Oh, and as for high-level learning, i agree totally! The current students are able to work at their own pace and can jump in the deep end as quickly as they like! We try to provide very current resources through a blog, which you can see at: <a href="http://designwebsites.blogspot.com/">http://designwebsites.blogspot.com/</a>. You'll see that the students also have their own blogs - we're trying to use them like learning journals, but it's up to the student as they obviously control their own blog. Oh, and as for high-level learning, i agree totally! The current students are able to work at their own pace and can jump in the deep end as quickly as they like! We try to provide very current resources through a blog, which you can see at: http://designwebsites.blogspot.com/. You’ll see that the students also have their own blogs - we’re trying to use them like learning journals, but it’s up to the student as they obviously control their own blog.

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