Discoveries and Understandings
In the process of creating my site, my skills as a site creator and an online educator have grown in many ways. Some of these lessons I learned as I was in the creation process while some I have learned as I have allowed my students to explore the site. One lesson that was learned as I explored the web guide created by Lynch and Horton was that as a general rule one should not allow links on the right side of the page, for that is an area that can be at times designated for ads (Lynch and Horton, 2009). I also acquired the knowledge from the web guide of how one should not to unnecessarily bold, italicize, and underline headings (Lynch and Horton, 2009). If I wanted to draw attention to a text I did so by contrasting it with the area around it instead of doing things that may confuse it as a hyperlink or similar web feature. A lesson that my students taught me this year in exploring different websites is that websites should have similar but distinct styles to their pages so that a user is aware of their presence on any given page. This idea aligns with Lynch and Horton’s web guide and is further supported by their support of CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) structures when it comes to web creation. CSS allows you to style your pages as I have styled my site in ways that make your pages similar but not the same. This helps my students to navigate and makes differentiating between the different types of pages more simplified as compared to creating a site only using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
Hypertext, hypermedia, and interconnectedness in general all enhance learning. I liken Cain’s Brain-Mind Learning Principles to how students learn utilizing these features found in online environments. Some of his principles state that, “the search for meaning is innate,” and, “occurs through patterning” (Cain, 2004). When students are able to access many documents though using hypertext and access many online resources through hyperlinks, they fall back on patterns that they have discovered in their past experiences and strive to create meaning through these patterns experienced in their prior knowledge. Just like each HTML page is uniquely organized following predetermined patterns in HTML, each student brain is uniquely organized based on their experiences. Furthermore, hypertext enables students to experience more content on the web as opposed to a dull interaction with one document at a time. For this reason, I felt that it would be appropriate to link my webpage to an assignment that I have created in EDTC 620 where I created a Science website zooming out from the structure of an atom while utilizing many pages of similar styles connected with hypertext and many links.
Hypertext, hypermedia, and interconnectedness in general all enhance learning. I liken Cain’s Brain-Mind Learning Principles to how students learn utilizing these features found in online environments. Some of his principles state that, “the search for meaning is innate,” and, “occurs through patterning” (Cain, 2004). When students are able to access many documents though using hypertext and access many online resources through hyperlinks, they fall back on patterns that they have discovered in their past experiences and strive to create meaning through these patterns experienced in their prior knowledge. Just like each HTML page is uniquely organized following predetermined patterns in HTML, each student brain is uniquely organized based on their experiences. Furthermore, hypertext enables students to experience more content on the web as opposed to a dull interaction with one document at a time. For this reason, I felt that it would be appropriate to link my webpage to an assignment that I have created in EDTC 620 where I created a Science website zooming out from the structure of an atom while utilizing many pages of similar styles connected with hypertext and many links.