Week 6 (Weak 6)

Well as one can tell from the corny pun in the title, I have been a little ill this week and slow getting all the assignments done. I have, so far, contributed to the discussion on the navigation wiki although I feel like I know next to nothing about navigation on a web page or website that has several avenues for one to embark upon. I haven't had any experience with working on navigational schemes but from what I read and viewed in this weeks' module it seems that as far as navigation styles it has all been done before. There was no speak of novelty or originality when it comes to navigation within a website but I did manage to learn what some of the styles are and how they work.

I have also written a wiki on Breadcrumbs, well it was more of a discussion of my thoughts on the breadcrumb concept. I hope this goes over as not so stupid to others as it did in my head in hindsight. I then read over the 4 principles of learner control in the text and online a little and completed a follow-up discussion on the discussion board with my most amateur assessment of the learner control theories. I am now choosing to attempt the extra credit mashup. Wooo hoo (non-scarastic)! This is something I know nothing about and am excited to learn something that seems so new to the world of computing. I am genuinely excited about this extra credit for the points and the novelty of the concept. Three cheers for Web 2.0....hip hip...

Week 5

Well it's not week 5 but...you know me and my forward moving ways. This week has been the most productive in terms of class content and confusing in content also. I like playing with new software like PSPad and other HTML (XML), XHTML, etc editors just to see what the differences between each are and what they can do. I am still stuck here in the library alone due to the current French strike that has crippled the already fragile/loose fabric that holds this univeristy together. I have edited the template document (page) to the degree that I think will work as of now. The objectives and directives within the module were sort of out of place and extremely vague (this may be the creativity suite working itself in), so I was at a loss when it came to writing text on the intro.php page. Other than that I have written a Wiki on XHTML. The Wiki this week was more of a stab in the dark than professional, empirical fact. I am almost certain that someone will edit my input the moment it hits their browser. I haven't posted to the discussion board yet because I'm still reading on the multimedia topics that are quieried in the module. Week 5 content to tackle: discussion board posting and flash lesson. Content presumably tackled: PSPad editing, template modification, wiki, and in the blog process.

Other than pushing my way through the content as fast as possible while still maintaining quality, I haven't been able to do much else. One of my notorious trips with questionable Internet access begins on Friday with a trip to Epernay, France to tour the champagne caves of Mr. Moet & Chandon (yay!). Moderation is the word of the day but I doubt most attending will adhere to the rule. Follow up on frequency and amount of consumption to come next week....A Plus!

Week 4

I know, I know it is still actually week 3 on the WebCT calendar but I am trying to get as far ahead as I can while I have daily Internet access. As most know through repetitive mention, I am living in France and will be traveling a lot this semester. This makes my Internet access pretty much dependent upon free roaming partners (pretty much non-existant in France) during my travels. For the week 4 assignments listed I have watched the learning theory video, some of the longer 55min video, written a wiki about Behaviorism in Education, and started the flash assignment. I have found the flash activities to be the most difficult in terms of content thus far, but also the most rewarding. I know absolutely nothing about flash creation and am anxious to learn via the tutorial on the web. What's even better is that we get extra credit (how much I don't know but any is worth it) for completing each flash tutoiral assignment. I hope to be posting more blogs like this in advance (see above for complication) to help with the stress level management this semester. I did not work ahead last semester and traveling around a lot with unpredectiable Internet made both classes very stressful. I need an A in both of my classes this semester and am willing to do the work and then some to earn them. Well anywho, other than that stay tuned for more exciting working ahead in the near future.

A Bientot,

Mark

week 3

This week has been pretty laid back for me. As most of you know, I am living in France until May with my wife. The country went on strike last week and most teachers and students at the university here in Nantes are still on strike. So, I have the entire library pretty much to myself, with the exception of a few people coming or going. I wrote a wiki this week on Market Impact as it pertains to copyright infringement. It wasn't much more than what was already posted on the term but I gave the "addition" a shot at specific relationship to copyright and what Market Impact actually means.

Other than that I watched all of the videos and read the articles posted on the copyright issues (to me, it seems that copyright laws and regulations change weekly). Afterwords, I completed the flash lesson with Adobe but I am not sure how I am going to do a flash lesson every week because I only have the trial version of Adobe CS4??? Well that's it for this week, see you all in class.

Mark