Monday, November 28, 2005
You get the picture.
Ok... these are our requirements: (White Hat)
DIGITAL PORTFOLIOThats a lot of work!
Your digital portfolio must be ready for assessment which we will do
on-line. It should contain AT LEAST the following:
1. Complete structure as per planning stage.
2. Complete graphics on home page etc as per Digital Imaging Project.
3. A minimum of 2 artifacts with completed reflections as per Reflection
Worksheet.
PROCESS JOURNAL
Your blogger process journal must be ready for assessment which we will do
on-line. We will be looking for regular entries and evidence of use of the
thinking hats.
EVALUATION REPORT
1. Soft copy submitted to turnitin.com by 11:59pm on the 11th November, 9B
to use user name and pw for Mr Hawkins, 9A to use Mrs Lindsay's.
2. Hard copy handed in to Mrs Lindsay's Office or Room 218 before the end
of school on the 11th November.
3. This report should have:
A title page, a table of contents, the self and peer evaluations and a
brief report based on the following(from the design brief):
* The portfolio development and design process
* Justify any deviations from the planned solution
* The use of weblogs as a publishing medium
* The use of an online discussion area such as nicenet.org to promote
collaboration and peer reviews
* Any strengths or weaknesses your portfolio has
* Make suggestions for future development of your portfolio
* Which areas of interaction were the main focus of this brief? Discuss
* What is the social significance of your digital portfolio?
All rubrics and other information are available from the ICT home page.
Black Hat:
Did not do a lot of work. Lots of work to do. This "lots of work left" theme has become my constant black hat. I guess I should add more.
I have an EXTREMELY slow internet speed at home.
I am SO not comfortable with a digital portfolio (it's true! it's true! I admit it!). Paper and plastic sleeves just seems more... achievable, real, actual matter.
Yellow Hat:
We have a deadline extension! I plan to set out my work in order to be abe to finish by the 11th
Green Hat:
My PLAN OF ACTION!!!
I plan to finish (by this lesson) 2 artefacts and at least one reflection.
Later, I shall create a list of my artefacts and prepare the content for each of my webpages. It is not a good idea to copy and paste stuff onto my weblog from word, because the font style and size become a nightmare. I shall have to sit down one day (at school, to have a constant connection) and create my pages. I shall also have to link all of them to have a working framework.
Red Hat
I do not like working with a portfolio that is on a blog!!! What's wrong with a regular website, for crying out loud?
Enoughg PJ-ing (process journal - ing) for now.
Sionara!
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Black (and White):
Ok... I have officially been inactive on my process journal for 12 days. That's a lot. Boohoo.
Yellow (and White):
On the bright side, take a look at my digital portfolio. I've included lots of new things, including my personal statement and sitemap.
Red:
I am so sick and tired of doing hats reflections that I will not do one today. I will just reflect the way I WANT TO!
Blue:
I find the hats quite useful for reflecting, but for some reason, I find it difficult to do in ICT. Perhaps this is due to the online format.
On the bright side, take a look at my digital portfolio. I've included lots of new things, including my personal statement and sitemap.
I am so sick and tired of doing hats reflections that I will not do one today. I will just reflect the way I WANT TO!
I find the hats quite useful for reflecting, but for some reason, I find it difficult to do in ICT. Perhaps this is due to the online format.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Task B: Comment on one of the four principles of Web Design
CONTRAST
For this task, I have chosen to comment on the importance of contrast in web design.
What is contrast?
Contrast is the use of differences in a web page. It may be any two characteristics of a page that are different. For example, orange text against a blue background may be considered a contrast. It makes use of two variations (blue and orange) of one element (colour).
It would be ridiculous to say that a size 12 font and left alignment is a contrast. Contrast must be something in relation to something else. The use of a certain sized font against a certain alignment does not compare variations of one element; rather, it compares two completely different elements (font size and text alignment).
Why is contrast important?
Contrast is important for about three major reasons:
It helps us see better, e.g. dark text against a light background would allow us to easily make out the writing.
It allows us to distinguish between different parts of a website. If a different colour is used for the text of different parts, our minds differentiate between the two.
Contrast is also used to highlight certain aspects of a page. If all the text is in a certain font and size, and one word or sentence is different from the rest, it stands out, establishing its importance or significance compared to the rest.
What is good contrast, and what isn’t?
Good contrast is the use of contrast effectively and appropriately. The aim of using contrast in web design is to make things clear and comprehendible. We may want to create a contrast between the colours or alignments to emphasise certain parts of a webpage. However, we would not want to create a contrast between layouts of webpages in a series. If the first page had photos at the very top and the second had the photos at the very bottom, it would confuse viewers. Contrast, like anything else, is only effective in moderation. Constant change and the emphasis of everything will overwhelm viewers and ultimately desensitize them to the contrasts used.
Examples:
For the first example, I did not use a website available on the Internet, so I have included sreenshots.
The image on the left is a screenshot of a webpage I had created with partner Tahmid for a project in Grade 7. We had used a predominantly black background with white text, but the colour combination was still flawed. As can be seen in the picture below, certain parts of the text were illegible due to the white streaks in the background.
In addition, the blue hyperlink cannot be read against black.
An example of contrast used effectively would be:
On the right is a webpage from the UN News Centre. The titles at the top are in a different colour altogether. The heading of the article is in bold type and has a larger font size than the rest of the article. The links and related articles on either side have a smaller text size.
I had searched the News Centre for articles containing certain keywords. Notice that the keywords are highlighted and in bold type.
What I liked most about this page was that it used contrast in moderation. The entire page has about three colours (red, blue and purple) being used for all the headings, text links and even the logos. It uses those colours to make things stand out, but does not overwhelm the viewer with an unreasonably large array of colours.
URL:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=16422&Cr=nuclear&Cr1=&Kw1=nuclear&Kw2=iran&Kw3=
did not do any process journal entries because I HAD nothing to write about. I've been working a lot today, on the report, and will now be doing my comment for section 3.
