Monday, November 17, 2014

Journal #6 - Self Reflection

I am really enjoying this course. I learned how to do very basic html tags when the Internet was new but never really used it and had no idea what css was other than it determined the look of the whole website. Now I feel that I have a much better understanding of the difference between html and css. The html markup describes the structure of the web page content, that is, headings, paragraphs, and other divisions and elements. The presentation of the content (fonts, placement of different elements, colors, etc.) is determined by the style sheet. This makes it easier to make changes because each page no longer has to be changed individually if the style changes; a new style sheet can be applied and the html for each page remains the same. I was fascinated by all of the different styles applied to the same html on the css zen garden site. I have also realized that I should have learned how to use the styles in Microsoft Word--I see now that I could have saved a lot of time and frustration.
I think the assignments have been challenging rather than difficult. I have enjoyed spending countless hours doing the exercises and trying to figure out what went wrong and why. Figuring out how to get files uploaded to the Cal Poly server and synchronizing the local and remote sites was probably the most difficult concept for me. I am still having trouble getting the book exercises to link properly. Once I figure it out (and why the lab links do work) I think that will turn out to be the most rewarding assignment.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Journal #5: Try Twitter

I have never been able to "get" Twitter. I can see the value if there is a news story that is moving quickly and you want to get whatever news there is as quickly as possible. I have used Twitter this way myself but found it lacking. The majority of tweets did not seem to be of high quality. A number of bloggers I read ask to be followed on Twitter but why? I read their blog posts regularly. What will be added by getting several short tweets a day? Will they just alert me to new posts they have written or articles somewhere else that I have probably already found or don't want to read? Most of the uses I have seen of Twitter seem to be superficial and not terribly valuable.

I followed #edtech and #educationaltechnology this week and did not find the tweets useful. They were usually links to an article the tweeter had read and was passing on. The blogs I read regularly reported on many of the same articles.

I am not a teacher but I know a couple of college teachers who use Twitter to let students know if the assignment has been changed or needs clarification or if class is cancelled for the day. Those seem like legitimate uses. A couple of the ideas in Twitter articles posted for this week seemed like they might be good teaching tools, especially the ones that relate to geography. For the most part, though, it seems more like using the technology because it exists instead of because it has much to offer in a classroom.