Catalyst Tutorial: "Building a Website" and "Creating an Effective Website" Learning and Scholarly Technologies, University of Washington 1998-2007

http://catalyst.washington.edu/help/planning/class_web.html

http://catalyst.washington.edu/help/planning/effectivewebsite.html

The Catalyst tutorial, "Building a Class Website" is helpful for both the "nuts and bolts" of building a course website as well as the larger ideas concerning why and how a course website is useful. The brief tutorial leads you through the process of conceptualizing and building your website: how it is linked together, how the viewer interprets the website, and how the information is best arranged for a diverse group of viewers. One of the tutorial's strengths is that it reminds the website builder to consider the audience's perspective. The website is, of course, not very useful if the viewer is turned off by the appearance or usefulness of the site. Therefore, the tutorial instructs: "Strive for Visual Coherence," Keep the Images Small," and "Keep the Site Content Dynamic." The tutorial successfully covers the basics of setting up a website while also providing some further thoughts on what to consider at the outset so that the website will be the successful.

The Catalyst tutorial, "Creating an Effective Website" walks the site-builder through the many puzzles and problems that one encounters when trying to make an effective website. The tutorial is helpful because it asks a series of questions that prompt the reader to investigate the who, what, and why questions that a new website-builder may not be familiar with. Under the heading "Design a Consistent Layout for Your Pages" the tutorial instructs the site-creator about important issues such as navigability and web-manager to viewer communication as well as very specific guidelines such as "Remember the ‘three-click' rule." The "three click" rule is a usability feature that states that your site will be less effective if it takes users more than three links or pages to access the desired information. Such thoughts are incredibly helpful for the first-time site creator.

Catalyst Tutorial: "Address Diverse Learning Styles" Learning and Scholarly Technologies, University of Washington 1998-2007

http://catalyst.washington.edu/help/teaching_guides/learning_styles.html

This tutorial addresses the ubiquitous observation that "students learn in different ways and often come to a course with different backgrounds and levels of preparedness." While it may be easy to recognize this statement as true, it may also be difficult to imagine the many ways that a course website can reach students with many different types of learning needs. This is precisely why this tutorial is helpful. In addition to describing how multiple kinds of materials can be useful, such as images, video, PowerPoint, sounds, peer review, etc., the tutorial also provides links to a number of other Catalyst web pages and external sites that deal with diverse learning strategies.

Catalyst Tutorial: "Promote Student Collaboration" Learning and Scholarly Technologies, University of Washington 1998-2007

http://catalyst.washington.edu/help/teaching_guides/collaboration.html

This tutorial addresses the three primary objectives of student collaboration: peer-to-peer learning and the comfort and convenience of web-based communication. "Electronic discussion" allows students to disseminate ideas any time that they are using the Web instead of being limited to the confined time of the classroom setting. Moreover, "ShareSpaces" and "Peer Review" are tools that allow students to collaborate on projects and "provides a common space for students to view, create, and discuss projects, papers, Web pages, and other assignments." This tutorial demonstrates one of the main functions of web-based classroom tools. By expanding the classroom time ands space onto the Internet students are able to access the classroom environment more often and in a variety of forums and environments. Students get the advantage of learning from one another outside of the spatial and temporal confines of the classroom.

The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm

There are many critiques of PowerPoint out there for us to be aware of. This one may be the most succinct while providing the most resounding message. Peter Norvig has taken what many people know, the all to common ineffectiveness of PowerPoint, and presented to us two main aspects of the Microsoft application's failings. The over-arching theme is that not everything can or should be said in short phrasings that fit neatly into "chunks." Some ideas are too complex to be squeezed into PowerPoint's boxes no matter how many electrifying graphics one uses. Additionally, some presentations, Norvig uses the Gettysburg address to prove this point, lose their poetry or eloquence or drama when sent through the winnowing effects of PowerPoint. Those who have seen an ineffectual PowerPoint presentation know what Norvig is driving at.