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Last night we had our first class. A few of the people from the online class joined us too, and they are always welcome--along with anyone else in the online sections.
We reviewed the syllabus and discussed the way the class is structured.
There are two main assignments for the class:
The web site that you create will be a portfolio. It will contain information about your professional goals, courses you have taken, resume and so on. The instructional technology program requires a portfolio, and you can use this class to design the web site for it. For the purposes of this class, I will NOT grade on the quality of the items in your portfolio. I will grade on the quality of your XHTML, CSS, and accessibility. Refer to the syllabus for more information.
You will turn in parts of your portfolio along the way. This will help reduce the load of the final portfolio assignment, because you won't have to do as much right at the end.
The web site evaluation assignment is due at the end of the semester, and will be a culmination of everything you've learned about web accessibility. You will pick a web site and evaluate it. Most web sites out there have a considerable amount of accessibility errors. Your job is to identify them and say how you would improve the site.
http://www.paulbohman.com/accessibility/526/2007spring
I spent some time this morning modifying some aspects of the look and feel of the course web site, and putting in new content that I've been converting from the resources I used last semester. The look and feel won't win any awards, but I tried to spruce it up a little. Don't be too surprised if you see the look and feel change again if I decide to make more modifications. Also, if you notice any errors or inconsistencies on the course pages, please tell me. I'm human, and I make mistakes. I would definitely prefer to fix them rather than have errors sit on the web site without anyone telling me.
You now have all of the resources that you'll need to complete the first assignment, at least in terms of the reading materials. I will provide more details on how to turn in the assignment in a future email.
Later on, I will send out more information about how to log into your future web site on the GMU portfolio server. I will set up some space for you to upload your web pages. The web address of your site will be http://www.portfolios.gmu.edu/yourname (where "yourname" is the first letter of your first name and your full last name; for example, "jsmith", "gmason", or "bjones" etc.)
I still haven't yet decided if I'm going to use Blackboard for this course or not. If I can add a few key features to the course site, I'd rather do it there. For now, you wouldn't need access to Blackboard anyway. All of the materials you need are in the readings. And you can always send emails to me to ask questions.
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