Building a Curriculum Web with Dreamweaver: Teaching Guide

Aim
Rationale
Audience
Subject-matter
Learning objectives
Materials
Instructional plan
Plan for assessment and evaluation

Aim: This set of lessons is designed to help educators who are fairly comfortable using computers to learn enough about Dreamweaver to be able to use it to create attractive and useful curriculum webs.

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Rationale: Dreamweaver simplifies the entire process of web design, from planning a site to creating a consistent look and feel. The product has many more functions than web-page editors such as Netscape Composer. While this additional functionality can be quite useful for teachers and other creators of web sites designed to support teaching and learning, it also requires the user to learn a lot more about the program. Therefore we have built this module to support the somewhat steep learning curve of new users of Dreamweaver, and because most of the participants in WIT Advanced will be teachers, have focused it on the development of curriculum webs.

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Audience: This module is designed for teachers and other adult educators who are comfortable using a computer for word processing and other basic applications, who have access to an Internet-linked computer, and who are internally motivated to learn Dreamweaver. Participants should know what the World Wide Web is, what the basic structures and components of web sites are, how to use a web browser and conduct simple searches, and what kinds (and levels) of materials are likely to help the target users to learn.

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Subject-matter: Learning Dreamweaver involves the exploration and use of a number of components and procedures, including:

• structure of the program and its components
• simple web site planning and design
• site management
• document setup
• page layout
• tables
• frames
• asset management
• text formatting
• inserting images and other media
• editing HTML directly
• linking and navigation
• templates and libraries
• layers
• behaviors
• forms
• publishing a site

The latter lessons in this module assume that participants are familiar with the basic structure and purposes of curriculum webs. This should be clear to you from the Introduction to Creating a Curriculum Web module that you participated in during the first couple of days of WIT 2002.

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Learning objectives:

Upon completion of the lessons in this module, participants will be able to use Dreamweaver to:

• copy an existing web site from a remote server
• utilize the extensive help files (both included on CD and online) to discover new procedures or learn new skills
• set up a new web site from scratch using the site layout view
• create a well-organized web site consisting of interlinked html documents
• publish partial or completed web sites to the CUIP server
• connect to the same web site from a different computer, and download, modify, and republish that same site
• create a template and apply it to a set of pages within a web site
• incorporate library items into a web site design
• understand the "web-safe" color space and use it on a web site
• use menus and other procedures to add text, images, and other content
• use the property inspector to modify a wide variety of web page elements
• use the site files view to copy, move, delete, and update pages on a local computer and remote server
• create and edit tables to effectively display content of all sorts
• define behaviors and use layers to include interactivity in web pages
• diagnose problems with layout and fix them using the HTML tag selector and code view
• extend capabilities by downloading and managing new extensions

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Materials: An internet-linked computer lab with one computer per participant (or one to be shared by pairs of participants), an instructor station with projector, and Dreamweaver installed on each computer. One CD containing Dreamweaver MX for each participant in order to install the software on a home computer (PC or Mac). The curriculum web designed to support this module.

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Instructional plan: This module is intended to be used during WIT 2002 to support the goals of Creating a Curriculum Web. The primary outcome of Creating a Curriculum Web will be the development of a complete curriculum web. The mentors of each section of Creating a Curriculum Web will determine what order the modules shall be used in. The separate lessons of this module are designed to be used in sequence, but may be spread out over a series of days or even weeks.

For each lesson within this module, it is suggested that the mentor demonstrate the techniques described in the module using a projector to show the participants what they are doing, and then have the participants do the activities while mentors circulate and offer help. When everyone has successfully completed the task or activity, then the mentors demonstrate the next set of techniques.

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Plan for assessment and evaluation: Each session will include a "session goal." Activities will be included to determine whether the participant has achieved the session goal. Participants who do not achieve the session goal will be encouraged to work on the goals on their own or to seek the help of the instructor or other participants. Participants who have not yet met the "session goal" of any previous sessions will be asked to schedule a time to receive additional help.

A general WIT workshop evaluation is available online.

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