IDOL Resources

From time to time I’m asked what books I recommend for someone interested in learning more about Web design. For those interested in a bit more step-by-step guidance with the basics of Web design, here are two books that I have in my personal library and I highly recommend.

Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to (X)HTML, Style Sheets, and Web Graphics (3rd ed.). ISBN 10: 0-596-52752-7

This thoroughly revised edition teaches you how to build web sites according to modern design practices and professional standards. Learning Web Design explains:

• How to create a simple (X)HTML page, how to add links and images
• Everything you need to know about web standards — (X)HTML, DTDs, and more
• Cascading Style Sheets — formatting text, colors and backgrounds, using the box model, page layout, and more
• All about web graphics, and how to make them lean and mean through optimization
• The site development process, from start to finish
• Getting your pages on the Web — hosting, domain names, and FTP

Learning Web Design starts from the beginning — defining how the Web and web pages work — and builds from there. By the end of the book, you’ll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you’ll know how to get your pages up on the Web.

The book includes exercises to help you to learn various techniques, and short quizzes to make sure you’re up to speed with key concepts. If you’re interested in web design, Learning Web Design is the place to start.

• Read the complete Table of Contents
• Buy it at O’Reilly.com

The Non-Designer’s Web Book: An Easy Guide to Creating, Designing, and Posting Your Own Web Site (3rd ed.). ISBN: 0-321-30337-7

If you think web design is beyond your reach, or if you want your existing web site to look more professional, this thoroughly updated classic is the place to turn! In these pages, best-selling authors Robin Williams and John Tollett share the creative ideas, useful techniques, and basic design principles that are essential to great Web design-all in the context of the most current technology, software, and standards. Throughout, the authors’ aim is to inspire you and spark your creativity rather than sedate you with pages and pages of code. To that end, you’ll find loads of real-world examples, interesting illustrations, and the simple instructions you need to implement the techniques and concepts described in these pages.

• Read sample chapter, "What are Web pages anyway?"
• But it a Peachpit.com

Google has unveiled a new experiment called “Social Search” that adds results from members of one’s public “social graph” to search results. This video explains how this new, experimental feature works:

Sound intriguing? Take a look at this demo video:

I’ve created my Google profile and have joined the Google experiment. I’ll no doubt be tweeting my experience in the days ahead. How might Google Social Search impact teaching and learning?

I recently noticed how filthy my laptop screen has become and found this great how to video showing steps to safely clean a glossy display.

No more excuses for having smudges and dust on your laptop screen!

Blogs have become common tools for communicating and collaborating online. While setting up a blog takes only a matter of minutes, effectively incorporating blogs into online teaching requires purposeful planning and structuring of activities to leverage the power that blogging brings to the learning environment. This presentation I gave at the 2009 SLATE Conference shared the experiences of incorporating instructor and student blogs into an online course as well as practical recommendations for those considering utilizing blogs in online learning. Sample instructor and student blogs as well as activities designed specifically for blogs were reviewed.

In addition to recording the session using a FlipVideo camera and sharing via Vimeo as well as a podcast in iTunes, I also experimented with live streaming the session using Twitcam. My colleague, Stephanie Richter, moderated the live stream / Twitter comments. The interactive online handout contains all the links, screen shots, and examples that I shared and/or referenced. Enjoy!

Cite this presentation as:

Rhode, J. F., & Richter, S. L. (2009, Oct. 16). Blogger beware: Teaching with blogs best practices. Presented at the 2009 SLATE Conference, Chicago, IL

Postsecondary enrollment rose by 28 percent between 1993 and 2007, and is projected to increase a further 13 percent with an estimated 21 million students enrolled in colleges, universities and training programs by 2018, according to Projections of Education Statistics to 2018, released today by the National Center for Education Statistics. The Projections report — the 37th in a series first published in 1964 — provides national-level data on enrollment, teachers, high school graduates, and expenditures at the elementary and secondary school level. The report also provides data on enrollments in elementary and secondary schools and high school graduates for the 50 States and the District of Columbia. At the postsecondary level, it includes data on enrollment and earned degrees for the past 14 years and projections to the year 2018.

Other findings include:

• Enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools rose 13 percent between 1993 and 2006 and is projected to increase an additional 9 percent between 2006 and 2018
• Between 2006 and 2018 private school enrollment is expected to decrease by 2 percent.
• The number of high school graduates increased by 27 percent between 1993-94 and 2005-06, and a further increase of 9 percent is projected by 2018-19.
• There are more African American and Hispanic students in college than ever before, and their numbers represent a larger share of overall college enrollment.

The number of African American college students increased from 1.7 million in 2000 to a projected 2.4 million in 2018. The number of Hispanic college students also will increase, to a projected 2.1 million in 2018 from 1.5 million in 2000.

To view the full report, visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009062