Fine-Tuning Your Project
Your project needs to be written in draft form.
To create published quality projects
At this point your project should be pretty much completed. In this lesson we would like you to take the time to review your project to see if you have missed anything in its construction.
A good start in evaluating your project is to use the Engaged Learning with Technology - Discussion Guide. You may even wish to print out this table and use the form to record ideas for later changes. This type of activity is a good one to do with a trusted friend. If possible, meet with your team to help edit each others' projects. This is again a good time to read over the Project Design Guide and the Project Rubric.
Have you followed the rules of Netiquette? Have you given credit where it is due? Are the graphics used in your project yours or have you received permission to use them?
Make certain you are familiar with the guidelines for naming an HTML file. Following these rules will make linking your pages and images easier.
Are your pages both attractive and easy to navigate? If you are an experienced user of the Internet, you already know how some cute animations can quickly become tiresome and annoying.
- Have you checked all of your links? Click here to check your links.
- Are your inline images loading correctly?
- Have you checked the spelling? Your editor may have a spell check. (PageMill does.)
- Have you checked grammar and punctuation?
Believe it or not, after all of this instruction, participants still write projects that do not allow students to direct their learning.
- If your project has the teacher telling students what to do each day, you need to refocus your project right now.
- If your project has the teacher finding and providing all the materials for their students, you need to refocus your project right now.
- If you, as the teacher, can envision everything the students will do, you need to refocus your project right now.
To gain more understanding of engaged learning and the ill-structured problem, read a student's perspective of problem-based learning.
Sending Your Pages:
Check with your facilitator as to where and when you should send your pages. Be sure you have followed the conventions in naming files and storing graphics. If you need help transferring files and pages, talk with your facilitator.
After you have uploaded your pages, go ahead and view them using Netscape or your browser.
If you sent your pages to the server correctly, you should be able to view them immediately.
Viewing your pages will allow you to see your final project and check that your links and images are working. Hint: Sometimes your links and images look perfect on your computer when they don't work on your browser.
If you find errors, you can correct them and then send the corrected files to the server. If the new file has the same name, it will copy over the old one and have the current corrections as the updated file. Remember that you will need to use RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser to see the changes you have made.
Be sure you send e-mail letting your facilitator know that the pages are there.
If indicated to do so by your facilitator, after all the projects have been posted, participants need to read all of the projects and post comments to the electronic bulletin board. (Your facilitator will send e-mail letting you know when and where you can view the projects.)