Learning for 21st Century: A Review on CMS and HTML Tutorials

            As a supplement to the learning experience on our second session in Multimedia Applications 2 last October 4, we were tasked to find a partner and collaboratively review the suggested websites, videos and documents for the course. It was a delight to be partnered with my colleague, Miss Jessica Rubin, for this activity. Since we both live in the same village in Taguig, we found time to sit together and review these learning materials. With the final examination period coming up (October 13 – 18), with still a number of lessons to finish, and a volume of test papers to score, Miss Jess and I managed to allot a good number of hours to watch the videos and brainstorm for the content of our review. With the warm company of her family ( and a good merienda and dinner at their humble abode after school), this activity hit upon exchanging ideas, and more importantly on building confidence and support for one another.

With much enthusiasm, here is our review for the various videos, site and document as posted in Schoology:

               

     1. HTML tutorial video series

This series of video tutorials on HTML exposes learners on the basics of creating a webpage. It presents the different tags used in creating the content of a web page and how these tags would work giving emphasis on the language of an html file. Each part of the video focused on specific learning tasks. It is always advised, though, that the learner watch the previous videos so that he/she would easily understand the tutorial. Consequently, the video tutorials are interrelated and shouldn’t be missed out for the full understanding about html.

a. Part 1. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4oN4DuR7YU). This eight – minute video presented the fundamentals about creating tags, angle brackets and the elements inside the angle brackets, the forward slash as well as the html program necessary for creating the headings and titles.

b. Part 2. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2BRS90baOY). This is a nine-minute video that introduced that Little Web Hut website and discussed web tags. The tags included in the discussion were break tags, paragraph tags and heading tags. The various tags were tested to see its effect to the content of the webpage. According to this tutorial video, a break tag separates the content of one line to the next content on the next line. The paragraph tag on the other hand brings a wider gap. The next line will be left with no content when paragraph tag is used. It seems that it holds the same principle as when we write a new paragraph in a word document. Lastly, the heading tags were also examined. Using <h1> would mean using the largest and boldest font among the headings tags. Meanwhile <h6> will produce the smallest heading in terms of font size and style. The boldness and size of font gradually decreases when comparing the headings from <h1> to <h2> and <h2> to <h3>, and so on, until <h6>.

c. Part 3. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAPPTnAJ5Pk). Other concepts on the fundamentals of creating a web page were presented in this tutorial. Among these are about cascading style sheets, document type definition and depreciated attributes. Furthermore, this eight – minute video tutorial focused on how the default behaviour tags could be change so it gives more freedom for the user to be more creative in his presentation of the web page. In addition, it was also mentioned in this video that depreciating attributes may both be used whether in an html or an xhtml web page.

d. Part 4. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B331GhDN130). This is maybe the longest tutorial (in terms of time) among the four parts in the series. This video clipped ran for 12 minutes and explored the tags on how images may be placed in the web page. The image tags are of big help in defining the layout and size of the image as it appears on the web page. The anchor tags were also discussed in this tutorial. The presenter demonstrated how these tags may be used in creating links which consequently will raise movement as one goes along a certain webpage.

The video series on html tutorial is totally a two thumbs – up presentation. The tutorial provided sufficient details about what beginners need to know on creating a web page. The presentation is very detailed, the lesson is completely explained, the examples were clearly illustrated and the voice of the presenter is clear and well – modulated.

For beginners, like us, this four-part video tutorial on html is indeed very helpful. Because of its detailed and clear presentation, learners would easily understand the language of html. It brings forth a bit of confidence and enthusiasm for every newbie to be able to create a web page using html or xhtml file.

What makes it difficult for starters is to be able to remember the different tags and attributes needed in creating the html file and consequently produce a web page. However, because the video also attempted to explain the know-how of tags and attributes, a learner will definitely be on the right track on his/her html project at hand. It will be a matter of mastery on the language of the html, the logic of the basic elements and diligence that a learner will be adept in creating a web page.

      2. http://www.graphicdesigndegreehub.com/classroom-assistant-html-tutorials/

The content of this web site appends the much needed learning on created a more structured and a well – defined form of a web page. This site that contains various topic on html and website design is very comprehensive in terms of content, and is effective in terms of presentation and layout. It really is a classroom – assistant that facilitates the learning on different multimedia applications. With quite a number of learning modalities such as documents and video clips on this site, a learner will be more exposed to the more complex elements but in a more simplified presentation. This is an avenue to further explore web page creation such as the how tables and texts may be laid – out on a webpage. This document together with the four-part video tutorial will surely make learning html more fun and easy. Truly, the advent of technology has shifted the paradigm of learning and transformed the world into a boundless global community. At this information age, every opportunity is given to man to create and disseminate knowledge, even at its complexity, with just the tip of his finger.

      3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J__39eioBNw

Among the video included for review in this activity, this video presentation is the longest, almost 16 minutes running – time. This video is about how to create and publish blog using blogspot.com. It gives blog apprentice the basic elements in creating blogs and the different setting to customize the blog according to the user’s delight.

Content wise, this video is quite helpful for blog beginners. It presented step – by – step procedures on how to start blogs such as creating the blog title and the url of the blog, customizing the content format and style, inserting images and publishing the blog. The presenter explained and detailed each process, thus, it provided the learners the necessary information about the learning task. However, this video would be more appealing and more effective in delivering the topic if the voice over is well – modulated and clear. Even if you turn the speaker into its maximum level, the voice is still not clear and understandable. Consequently, it was difficult to follow through with the lesson. Nevertheless, the call outs in the video presentation facilitated learning because of its emphasis to important icons and details of the procedure.
  

     4.  http://danielcraig.wikispaces.com/file/view/Blogger+Tutorial.pdf

This is a 19 – page document that offers a step by step procedure for bloggers with emphasis on how to create and publish a blog. Though this is just a document, with no voice instructing what to do next, the call outs indicated in each page will surely guide a learner in creating a worth – noted blog. The lay out in the document and the decongested content for each page is appealing to the eyes of the learners making it easy to comprehend.

We may then just be neophytes on the different multimedia applications and activities such as creating web pages and blogs. But as teachers 21^st century learners, our diligence and willingness to learn is of great value to any learning task. Technology are created, enhanced, updated and recreated almost every second. Every tick of the clock, classroom may gradually get bigger and wider, seas and mountains may hold no territorial boundaries, and time and space may be defined differently. With the dynamic changes in the learning environment, it is worthy to note that we, teachers, has engage ourselves in programs and trainings like this (multimedia application course) so we can effectively respond to the modalities of 21^st century learning, and be instrumental in pursuing knowledge and inculcating values to students.

(Pardon us... it seems we become overboard on reviews. Sitting down together brought us reflections that learning for this course made us a newbie, while the students nowadays are more adept with this. It is quite a fruitful exchange of ideas, don’t you think?)