Another PD - Webinar: Creating a standard-compliant site

Webinar notes

On Tuesday, December 07, 2010 during my planning I attended a Webinar titled “Creating a standard-compliant site: Tips, tricks and traps”.  I also signed up to attend another one the next day.  The presenter was James PhD.  and organizer was Lisa Harnish.

I liked having audio and visual on the screen.  The webinar was easy to access and it started promptly.  The first 15 minutes was like an advertisement about their sites, upcoming conferences and things they’re doing which I didn’t care for much.  If they want to do this I think at the end would be more appropriate so people who didn’t want to listen could leave.  The screen shots were PowerPoint slides with the main points from the discussion.  After the webinar they sent a PDF file of the presentation which was useful.

Meat of the discussion wasn’t as long as I thought it would be but it was interesting.  They discussed how things become starndards . . . and how things start as an ides – some group tries something and it works and later it catches on.  18 months from the first idea to it being a standard would be considered very fast movement.  This was interesting but doesn’t really help with my immediate needs.

The majority of topics they touched on helped reinforce concepts I thought to be true.  Such as HTML 5 has new elements, CSS has limitations, can’t stress enough about the importance of communication with the client, mobile platforms and why standards are important, keep code consistent throughout the site (pick a standard and stick to it html 4.0 or 5.0),  test multiple browsers, importance of proofreading, and so on.   Some of the topics were interesting but beyond what I have time to do in my class, such as sites with searchable databases and the topics of Pay per click (ppc).

Two walk away’s

1. http://validator.w3.org – good web site for developers to check code
2. http://browsershot.org where it can take a look for you …. On several platforms.

At the end there was 5 minutes for questions before more commercials.  Overall – there was 20 minutes of MEAT.

I liked this form of Professional Development and would do it again.

The next day I was really excited about hearing what they had to say but was disappointed.  Our network had some problems when I clicked the link.  It took about 10 minutes before it finally connected.  When it connected my sound wasn’t working.  I used the same computer, mic, and headphones as the day before so I don’t know what the problem was.  I tried to reconnect after 10 minutes and had to go through all the sign up stuff again.  Then when I was finally connected I found again my sound wouldn’t work.  I double checked all my connections.  After 30 minutes I gave up.  This was frustrating especially since all worked 100% fine the day before. 

Line to see Jesus - Enjoy.

More PD - Russia Space Station, Digital Storytelling, Webinar

Sunday morning after Thanksgiving company went home I spent several hours looking at videos and topics at Classroom2.0 web site.  One of the most interesting videos was a tour of the International Space Station.  It's not my subject matter but I found this most fascinating.  Several years ago I read the book Off The Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard The Space Station MIR, and was hooked.  It's written by a medical doctor from Michigan who spent five months on the Mir space station (it's last manned mission).  If you haven't read the book I highly recommend it - he's conceited but if you can look past that, it's a fascinating account on life aboard the Mir, problems encountered, and an interesting account on US and Russia relations. 


Anyway . . . back to the video.  I loved it.  It walks you all around the current space station.  It's amazing to me that several astronauts from around the world live and work together gather information for scientific study. 

I also watched Digital Storytelling video which I didn't find as useful as the communication between followers.  I started reading posts that dated back to March 2010 and one link in particular that had story starters and other lesson plan ideas.  I spent the next couple of hours just reading all the links associated with this - also bookmarked some on my Delicious account to use later.  I ended up finding several site with some good lesson plan ideas on how to teach digital citizenship.  I signed up for Digital Citizenship and Creative Content program which provided some well designed lesson plans.  I'm excited about reading these plans and developing a project to use in Online B class.  This was well worth the time I spent searching today. 

More to come - Webinars.  I signed up for two CIW Webinar for Tuesday December 7 and Wednesday, November 8.  If Alice will arrange for a sub I should be good to go.  Topic: Creating a Standards-Compliant Site.  I'll post my thoughts on the Webinars later in the month.

Online PD: Audacity

The first PD I did was a few weeks ago using an Audacity tutorial I found on the web.  I had never used this program and I was looking for something that would convert wav to mp3 files so students could upload their podcasts.  I found the tutorial extremely useful.  I'm not one to figure out how things work on my own . . . I usually look at the owners manual before playing.  When I work with Online tools, it takes me longer than the average person . . . so finding this tutorial was a great benefit.  I also posted the link on my class blog so my students could view it at home before they had to use the program in class.  Most were able to use the program without further instruction after they watched the video.  Of course I had a few that didn't watch the video and a few special ed students who may have watched it but couldn't remember the steps.  But overall it worked great.
Audacity Tutorial  - YouTube (may have to be viewed at home)

Voki Avatar

Get a Voki now!


Meet my new Voki, Roberta . . . She's wondering if blondes really do have more fun.
My experience:  it was fun playing around with it for a bit.  As far as how I could use it in my classes . . . it seems elementary to me however, freshman would enjoy creating an Avatar.  It could be used as a way to be more anonymous on the web - especially if it's gender neutral.  It could be used on student blogs; instead of having students upload their photo to their blog, they could use their Avatar.    It would also give students more practice recording their voice on a computer.

Practicing embedding a video

Practicing embedding a video.

My First Web 2.0 class post

Grand Rapid's October Fest was great fun this past weekend.  If you love Civil War reenactments and craft shows you wouldn't be disappointed.