The Web mastering teacher has the knowledge and skills needed to teach the Foundations, Information Acquisition, Work in Solving Problems, Communication strands of the Technology Applications Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in Web mastering, in addition to the content described in Technology Applications Standards I-V.

I had built several web pages and sites before, but my experience and knowledge was somewhat spotty -- that is, if I hadn't needed to know something for what I had done, I most likely didn't know it. The web mastering portion of TATC has been most helpful in aiding my development in planning before beginning a site, and increasing my knowledge in the areas of navigation systems and cross-platform compatibility.

Cross-platform compatibility was a revelation -- if it looked good on my computer, I expected it to look good on everybody's. Wrong. I now know how to check and see what it's going to look like, and probably more important, can avoid some of the issues beforehand.

Planning is now more streamlined. I try to maintain a common "look" for all pages in a site. Navigation is more consistent, and I try to have as many types as possible on each page, so that users have no difficulty finding what they want. I feel I have matured as a web builder -- I've filled in many of the gaps in my self-taught knowledge, and no longer want to add things to a website "simply because I can."

I'm still struggling with CSS, but it's coming, and it helps so much. I need to work more on that.

The biggest challenge in teaching webmastering, I feel, is teaching that maturity. In the same way I did, students often want to add elements "because they can." Teaching students to maintain functionality and overall concept is going to be tough. Teaching navigation and composition is fairly easy, since I now know about it and can use a common vocabulary.

Artifact #11 / Artifact #14

Caption 11

Indicators: Standard IV, 7.3s, 7.4s, 7.6s, 7.8s, 7.9s, 7.10s, 7.11s, 7.15s, 7.16s, 7.32s, 7.33s, 7.36s, 7.37s, 7.38s, 7.47s, 8.1s, 8.2s, 8.11s, 8.14s, 8.15s, 8.24s, 8.25s, 8.31s, 8.34s, 8.35s, 8.38s, 8.40s, 8.41s, 8.42s, 8.45s, 8.47s, 9.8s, 9.11s, 9.13s, 9.15s, 9.16s, 9.17s, 9.18s, 9.21s, 9.24s, 9.26s, 9.27s, 9.38s, 9.39s, 9.41s, 9.42s, 9.43s, 10.9s, 10.37s, 10.38s, 10.40s, 10.41s, 10.43s, 11.1s, 11.2s, 11.4s, 11.7s, 11.10s, 11.11s, 11.12s, 11.17s, 11.19s, 11.20s, 11.21s, 11.23s, 11.24s, 11.32s, 11.35s, 11.39s

Artifact #11

Descriptors: Web Authoring, Photo Editing

Title: Website design

Course: 102 Web Authoring

Date Created: September 30, 2002

Source: Individual Project using Dreamweaver 4

Media: Dreamweaver 4, WWW

Description: In this assignment, TATC students were commissioned by a travel company to develop a simple site of 3 pages or more about at least one of their most traveled destinations. Students were required to include the following in the website: global, parallel, and local navigation schemes, the navigation structure of "bread crumbs," a storyboard, a home page, a company services page, a map, office hours, links to external sites, a site map, a company logo, photos, and results from a test performed on at least one page.

Rationale: I chose this work to include as a "Best Work" example because this artifact includes almost all aspects of web authoring. The site was required to be consistent in tone and appearance, with more than one working navigation scheme. I was happy with my development and execution of this site, because I was able to thoroughly plan and implement a comprehensive website, putting all the pieces together into a coherent whole, rather than "throwing a site up" to simply and quickly fill a void. I also was able to showcase some new skills, particularly in the areas of navigation and accessibility issues. I was able to force myself to take one step at a time, a review course which comes in handy when you're trying to explain those steps to students.

Implications for future: The biggest impressions I take away from this assignment are (1.) that a website needs to be a coherent whole, that is, each area must work well together, and (2.) that thorough planning must take place before the website begins, rather than evolve as the site is constructed. Had I known (or used) these concepts in my earlier pages, I would not have the massive restructuring jobs that I have had to undertake. This breaking down of the assignment into discrete stages will be invaluable when it's time to pass it on to students. From here, one step is to "get my own house in order" -- meaning I need to fix several things on web pages I've created. I think it is important to convey to students that, most of the time, the teacher doesn't get everything right the first time, and much of web mastering (and life) is a learn, revise and evaluate as you go process.

Reviewer's Comments:

WOW!
This site is professional with a touch of fun! I could pretty much tell where I was, where I could go and how could I get back, but I was thrown for a minute when the "breadcrumbs" were at the bottom. Great global navigation toolbar at the top!

CONTENT
Accuracy: Lots of verifiable facts, consistent with other sources
Authority: Author of the site stated, no credentials given or verifiable (but this is make believe, right?) ;-) Purpose clearly stated in "Our Company"
Objectivity: Customers would be gained by the this site's publishing this information
Currency: Date created given

FUNCTIONALITY
Page loads quickly
Navigation is consistent
All images loaded
No broken links
No spelling errors
Alt text used.

Suggestions:
WOW, What can I say but WOW!

Reviewer's Name: Janice K. North

Title: TATC Student

Date Reviewed: September 30, 2002

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Indicators: Standard I, Standard II, Standard IV, 7.3s, 7.6s, 7.10s, 7.15s, 7.16s, 7.17s, 7.37s, 8.1s, 8.2s, 8.6s, 8.8s, 8.15s, 8.17s, 8.24s, 8.28s, 8.29s, 8.30s, 8.31s, 8.35s, 8.44s, 8.45s, 8.46s, 8.47s, 9.8s, 9.11s, 9.16s, 9.22s, 9.23s, 9.25s, 9.32s, 9.40s, 9.41s, 10.37s, 10.38s, 10.41s, 10.43s, 11.2s, 11.4s, 11.7s, 11.10s, 11.12s, 11.17s, 11.19s, 11.20s, 11.21s, 11.23s, 11.28s, 11.29s, 11.32s, 11.35s, 11.39s

Artifact #14

Descriptors: Web Authoring

Title: Storyboard, Animated GIF and Javascript Slideshow

Course: 202 Web Authoring

Date Created: November, 2002

Source: Scanned Photos, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver 4, Adobe Livemotion

Media: Web page and javascript were created in Dreamweaver; photos were resized and optimized in Photoshop, and animated GIF and Flash versions were created in Adobe Livemotion.

Description: Scanned pictures were optimized for web usage, then a storyboard created and animated GIF and Flash versions of a slide show were produced. A javascript version of the slide show was added later.

Rationale: I'm including this artifact because it shows several TEKS at once, especially ones relating to image and webpage optimization. It's a good example of ways to cope with problems displaying several photos on the web. In this activity, we were to create a storyboard to plan a slide show of photographs and then create an animated gif of those photos. We were to use any bit-mapped animation software program that we learned about in 101 and/or 202 or another program of our choosing. The design was to reinforce the ideas of image optimization, and to highlight the problems of image quality and load time in web presentations, along with presenting a possible solution to the load time difficulty in the Flash and javascript approaches. I was familiar with the animated GIF process and the Flash approach, but hadn't considered javascript as a means for circumventing load time difficulty and increasing user interactivity.

Implications for future: This would be a good assignment for classes to attempt. Pictures are part of the backbone of the WWW, so everyone wants as many as possible on their webpages. However, the more pictures, the longer load time. So the assignment is a good approach to dealing with these difficulties.

Reviewer's Comments: I liked the layout of your web page. You had the assignment, storyboard, slideshow, etc. on the left. I definitely enjoyed reading about your slideshow and I also learned from your experiences. Thanks for sharing with us!

Reviewer's Name: Mary-Dawn Hudspeth

Title: TATC Student

Date Reviewed: November 25, 2002

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