Introduction

Learning objectives

The learning objectives for this session are that by the end of it you should:

1. be able to use one or more authoring packages with sufficient fluency to be able to teach them to children in KS 3 and 4;
2. know enough HTML to be able to teach it to pupils in KS3 and 4;
3. understand the importance of evaluating work as it progresses;
4. be able to evaluate the suitability of web-pages you have created for their intended audience;
5. have some knowledge of the difficulties pupils will face in constructing web-pages;
6. understand how the production of web-pages can contribute to the development of this strand of the IT NC
.

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About this session

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Products of the session

The cohort's web pages can be accessed from the index. Note that this is outside the password protected area of the site.

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The task

The task consists of two parts:

1. constructing your page(s) to address the intended audience;
2. writing a brief report (1-2 pages of A4) which describes briefly:
   • the difficulties you faced in making the site;
   • what misconceptions you think children may hold in this area;
   • how the construction of the page was influenced by your perception of your intended audience.

(Please see the attached sheet for details of what you page(s) must and should contain - and what you are to do with it when it is written.)

In constructing your pages key point is to think of the needs and resources of your intended audience and to use this as a framework for deciding the structure organisation and content of your page(s). For this reason the session will start with a discussion of the possible audiences, and how this can/should influence what you do.

If you are new to web-authoring you should start by using Home Page and the excellent on-line tutorial produced by ICS. More experienced authors can use Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash which are available on the machines in 915.

For work at home you can either use Netscape Composer (free) or I have (legal and free) copies of authoring programmes from the cover discs of magazines.

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The timetable

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Links to other sessions

1. On 25th September you will be writing lesson plans to teach one or more aspects of this task to children
2. Your evaluation of your own web-page is linked to the task to evaluate two other web-pages (which you will start this afternoon)
3. You will have the opportunity to develop and demonstrate you knowledge in this area in Assignment 1.1.1, where you produce an on-line tutorial. This is introduced in the session on October 1.

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In the classroom

Misconceptions

Two ideas:

The major misconception in this concerns the nature of a web-page and is the belief that it 'contains' everything that you see on it - including pictures. This belief is very plausible - if you see it on the page then it 'follows' that it is on the page. Also, if you print a page then both the text and the pictures on it print. However, as a number of you have found out the hard way - this is not the case. Web-pages contain text and links - links to pictures, sounds, movies and other web-pages. This matters because you can make links to pictures on (say) your local hard disc then the page will view perfectly but when you move just the page (say to the IOE server) then the links no longer work and you will not be able to see the pictures. This happened to a number of your pages and commonly happens to those children make. When you teach this area, you can use the fact that children will make this mistake to discuss the nature of web-pages.

A second misconception (held by my own children) is the belief that anything saved as a 'web page' is, by virtue of this, accessible via the Internet. Having made a 'personal web page' at school, which was saved on one of the school servers but not on its web-site, they were most disconcerted to find that they could not show it to me via the www, and could not understand why.

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Classroom examples

Another primary school, Ambleside had a useful page concerned with teaching and learning about the Internet and web-design - including lesson plans.

Becta has a page with good advice for schools who wish to develop their own web site.

You can see examples of work children have done using Flash at the Tygh site.

Webmonkey for Kids has a good set of lessons, projects and tools for use by children.

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Teaching point

How to start children writing web pages? There are two schools of thought:

One believes that children should start by writing HTML, so that they understand the coding behind their pages. The point here is that the focus is on the technical side of ICT.

The second believes that children should start by using web authoring packages - including Word - as it is significantly easier to create pages in these. The focus here is on producing a product for an audience - on the capability aspect of ICT.

My strong preference is for the second, but you will need to make up your own mind - and in doing so, think through the purpose of the activity. Is it to teach a technique, and if so which, a markup language, detailed knowledge of which is increasingly of less importance - or an authoring tool? Or is it to focus on capability - and how can this be developed without the concomitant development of skills?

This is an example of one of the major problems in IT teaching - the need to reconcile skills and capability. Remember that the ICT National Curriculum is about the latter, but Ofsted reports that many schools focus primarily on the former.

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Other Resources

The DfEE Schemes of Work

You should look at the following units of the DfEE schemes of work:

Key Stage 2: unit 4A Writing for different audiences;

Key Stage 3: unit 9 Publishing on the Web.

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Books/Papers

See 'Issues in teaching using ICT' edited by Marilyn Leask (Institute library reference Loyx LEA) and

'Using the internet in secondary schools' by Eta de Cicco, Mike Farmer and James Hargrave (Institute library reference Loyx Ref CIC).

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