Blog #5

Instructional Web Site


Description of Instructional Web Site

I created an eighth grade mathematics instructional web site for my project. My instructional web site was on the Pythagorean Theorem. I created a lesson based on 8th grade mathematical content. I currently teach 8th grade mathematics and felt it would be a beneficial web site for me to use with my students.

The site had six pages in all, five of the pages are about the different uses of the Pythagorean Theorem and one page is for the reference page. The menu included the following: Home, Length of Hypotenuse, Length of Leg, Height of a Triangle, Real World Problems, and Reference page.

The pages contained different information that I thought would be useful for 8th grade students. The Home page describes the site as well as giving a description of the Pythagorean Theorem. This section gives a brief history and an introduction to the topic being presented. The other pages show how to use the Pythagorean Theorem. In the section Length of the Hypotenuse, the site gives detailed steps on how to find the missing hypotenuse length when given the other two leg lengths. The Length of the Leg section gives the detailed steps on how to find a missing leg length when given one leg length and the hypotenuse length. Height of a Triangle shows how to find the missing height length by using the Pythagorean Theorem and then continues to use that information to show how to find the area of the triangle. The Real World Problems section is used to show students how to use the Pythagorean Theorem in real life. This is very important for students in mathematics. Finally, the Reference page is there to show all of the resources I used during the project.


Obstacles Encountered

I really did not have a lot of problems in created my site. I used Dreamweaver to create the web pages and my own mathematical knowledge in creating the content needed. I did have to use a variety of resources during the creation of the site.

Using Dreamweaver makes creating a web site seem really easy to me. Dreamweaver is very user friendly and easy to work with for creating basic sites. I used the basic features and did not get into very complicated issues at this point. Where I ran into trouble was not in Dreamweaver. The obstacle that I encountered was with publishing my site.


Obstacles Resolved

I started trying to resolve the problem on my own. I watched and re-watched the tutorials for setting up our comp accounts. I felt like I had everything set up correctly but still could not see my web site online. After I re-watched tutorials, I finally decided to send an email to one of my classmates. She and I had another class together and had worked as partners before. So, I thought I would see if she could help me. She thought I had a problem with the permissions and advised me to watch one of the tutorials again. I did watch the tutorial again and was convinced that I had everything set up correctly.

At this point, my frustration level is starting to show. I had tried everything I knew to do. So, I finally decided to email my instructor. I sent the error message I was receiving to my instructor and she felt it may be with the permissions also. She gave me some advice and instructed me to watch the tutorial in BlackBoard on setting up permissions. She said this was a good starting point and advised me to let her know how it worked out.

I did go back and watch the tutorial and made sure the permissions were correctly set. However, this did not solve my problem. I decided to email my instructor again because by this point my frustration level was at an all time high. My instructor responded with a variety of issues that could be causing my problems and offered to look at my files if I would take screen shots for her. She also offered an Elluminate session to help me. I was thrilled she was willing to do this and told her that I would be there.

When I arrived home after work, I immediately began looking at the issues she suggested could be causing the problems. She had told me that she did not see a home page for me which is my index.html page. After that sentence she said, "Do NOT capitalize "index" or it might not render properly." Well, there it was. One little capitalized "I" was giving me all of the problems with my site. Once I changed the "I" to lower case, there was my web site, published and ready to go.

I did attend the Elluminate session for a few minutes. I stayed long enough to tell my instructor she had helped me solve my problem and to thank her for being so patient with me. The good news is that I will never make that mistake again!


Successes Experienced

The biggest success I experienced was I actually created a web site! The neat thing about this project is how cool it was to see your web site come together. I really felt like the site was well organized and the coloring was appropriate for the lesson. I tried numerous different background colors, fonts, and pictures before deciding on the ones I used in the site.

As I worked on the site and each page began to pull the content together, the more success I felt. Once I was able to overcome the publishing issue and see my web site over the Internet, I could tell exactly what the site would look like to others. I am proud of my site at this point. I know that there will be advice from my instructor that will help me to improve the site and improve my skills which will lead to future successes for me.


Future Dreamweaver Features to Use

There are so many features in Dreamweaver that I have not used yet. I don't know where to begin in deciding the future uses. I would like to find out what Spry is because there are a lot of the features associated with it. I would also like to know more about the forms tool bar. I am not sure what the features in that area do either. I also noticed under commands there is a start recording button. I have no idea what this button is used for and would like to see if this is a feature I would like to use in the future.

Basically, I feel that I have learned a lot about Dreamweaver; however, I know that there is so much more available for me to use in my web site creations. As I continue my journey through the ETEC program, I believe that I will learn more about the more advanced features and will benefit greatly from this knowledge.