#22738
Although blogs are generally linked with business, personal, and entertainment sites, Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, thinks that blogs are evolving into a major academic tool for universities. Members of the academic community have discovered that blogs offer the classroom a cheap, sociable, and fast way for everyone in the class to actively participate in discussion.
Lisson, Kristin. Techniques (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#22734
If you surf the Net, even just a little, it's not hard to run into a poorly designed site. These sites detract from the user’s online experience. Here are some 'strong suggestions' every Web designer should follow to avoid adding more poorly designed sites to the Web.
Gieseke, Laura. Techniques (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#22740
E-books are a cost-saving technology for students. Imagine while reading your expensive paper textbook that it suddenly displayed a video that taught you the technique you just read about. Imagine searching through your textbook with the click of a button. Imagine your textbook costing about half of what you used to pay. That’s right—you didn’t read the last line wrong. It was half the amount you used to pay. Imagine all this and more, with e-books. E-books have many advantages over paper textbooks. The best advantage for students would have to be the cost. E-books are sold at very low prices because the whole printing process is out of the picture. This saves money for the publishers and in turn saves money for students.
Nelson, Daniel. Techniques (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#22736
E-Learning in the Library: Developing an Online Library Research Tutorial
The instruction librarian at GustavuAn examination of this draft tutorial serves to illustrate some of the issues concerning 'e-learning' in the context of online library research tutorials.s Adolphus College (GAC) in St. Peter, Minnesota has created a draft online library tutorial: 'Doing Research at the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library – and Beyond,' available at http://www.gustavus.edu/oncampus/academics/library/tutorial.An examination of this draft tutorial serves to illustrate some of the issues concerning 'e-learning' in the context of online library research tutorials.
Hulseberg, Anna. Techniques (2003). Articles>Research>Online
#22739
Evaluating Online Tutorials on Software Applications
Nowadays, there are a lot of software applications designed to meet the need of end users to simplify their work. These software applications usually come with supporting tools to help users with system setup and requirements, installation guides, troubleshooting, or getting-started tutorials. When looking for more information on a specific topic or “how to” on a software application, users usually tend to look first on the manufacturer’s Web site. In reality, however, the result doesn’t always answer our questions, because the manufacturer may have a wide variety of tutorials that may confuse us, the manufacturer’s tutorials may be intended for experienced users, or tutorials may be incomplete because the manufacturer only goes through the basics of the software application.
Lumenta, Agnes. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Tutorials>Online
#22731
A Good GUI Design: Desktop vs. Web Environments 
Good graphical user interface (GUI) design is more important than ever, given the proliferation of software applications and Web sites. GUI design principles were first defined for desktop-oriented software applications, when the Internet was barely known by most software users. Those GUI design principles were later adopted and modified for use in Web design. This article reviews some basic rules of good GUI design in the desktop environment, explores why those rules might differ in the Web environment, and, finally, summarizes the similarities and differences in good GUI design for both environments.
Harris, Robert. Techniques (2003). (Bulgarian) Organizations>Telecommuting>Organizations>Adobe FrameMaker
#22732
Learning Languages with Instant Messaging
While e-mail and discussion groups are other popular communication genres on the Internet, instant messaging is the most conducive to learning languages because of its synchronous nature. There are many ways to communicate over the Internet, but instant messaging is unique, because it almost simulates a face-to-face conversation. Unlike e-mail and discussion groups, users are not simply leaving messages to be read later. Users are both present, holding a live conversation. Although some of the subtle features of conversation are lost (such as facial expressions or tone of voice), instant messaging makes up for these disadvantages by being so widely accessible to so many people across the world.
Dean, Heather. Techniques (2003). Articles>Language>Collaboration>Instant Messaging
#22735
Online Ins and Outs: How E-learning Works
Online classrooms are the way of the future, and rather than discussing the benefits and drawbacks of e-learning, let’s look at how e-learning works on two of the top e-learning environments running today.
Haugh, Donald. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online
#22733
Online learning, a new phenomenon in Chinese education, is developing at an unimaginable pace. According to China Internet Information Center’s (CNNIC) survey in June this year, there were 68,000,000 Internet users. Statistics also show that there were 59,100,000 more users compared with the first half of the year. Eighty-four percent of the users were between 18 to 40 years old, the ages for continuing education (China Internet Network Information, 2003). The survey indicated that taking online courses is one of the most important purposes of the users. The development of online learning in China has three tendencies: student-centeredness, more involvement in the nation’s education system, and collaborative effort by prestigious universities.
Dong, Qiumin. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online>China
#22737
Online or Face-to-Face: A Survey of Student Preferences
Although COMS 101 is officially a face-to-face course, I duplicate so much of the course online that it is more like a hybrid course. A hybrid course is between a traditional lecture course and a completely online course in terms of the percentage of class time conducted online. Theoretically, my students learn in our scheduled lectures, but in reality, about one-third of the class requirements are accomplished with little or no instruction from an in-person teacher. This is not so much due to the online content, but instead to the requirement of learning software applications without benefit of a scheduled lab session.
Lindberg, Martha. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online
#22741
The Webinar: The New Face-to-Face?
E-learning, the ability to access a training session via the Internet, is available to anyone with a phone line and a PC. E-learning provides participants with the opportunity to receive information about a particular topic in his or her related field. The instructor may be a business associate, university professor, or other expert.
Pockrandt, Leah K. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online
