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I’ve written before about my frustrations with Blogger. And while I think it was a good solution the last time I taught RTF 319, I’ve given up on Blogger mid-way through the semester, which doesn’t make me feel very good about myself. Regardless, it has become a complete hassle, and I don’t think there’s anyway to salvage it. Beyond the reliability problems with Blogger, it introduces a few major problems with my teaching. The downtime provides students with an convenient excuse for not getting their work into me, and it fills up my already bulging inbox with nuisance email from students. Moreover, it gives the (not unwarranted) impression to students that I’m not on top of the class.
What I like about using blogs is that it provides a way to deliver assignments with a timestamp and usually minimizes the hassles of managing projects. The last time I used Blogger for deliverables, it worked beautifully. Now it’s turned into a nightmare, and Google’s increasingly strict identity management policies make me worry about protecting the privacy of my students. I think I will look into using Moodle if I ever teach this class again, which does seem like an adequate platform for posting work and discussion questions.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve come up with a new CSS project. It’s pretty lame, but I think it is appropriate for lower-division students.
- CSS Project
- Create a folder in your UT Webspace called “RTF 319” and an index.html home page.
- Create a page for each one of your projects so far. At this point, I am considering the Illustrator and Photoshop assignments as projects. You can create pages for the “homework” assignments if you please, but it is not required.
- Each page should include a description of your project and your design approach to the project.
- OK, here’s the part where CSS comes in. The power of CSS is that allows you to create consistent styling across a Web site using a single file. You will be graded on how well you can apply CSS to this project. You will use only one stylesheet for the whole site.
- I want to see a minimum of seven styles, IDs, or redefined HTML tags in your stylesheet. Feel free to use more.
- You will be graded both on the attractiveness of your design, and on the sophistication of your CSS code.
