Web project and final essay reflection

Yes, That Means I Have FINISHED. Not only this course, but everything for this semester. Only 7 hours now til I fly to the Whitsundays for a very welcome break. But before I do, I thought I'd comment on my project.

Although I had messed around with a website before, it was a very long time ago, and, as I recall, very simple. I think websites in general were a lot simpler in 1998. This project forced me to learn the skills to produce at least a basic site, and gave me a lot of ideas for future creations. Although I'm not 100% happy with my final product, I think it is a good first experiment. There are, however, a lot of things I would either do diferently next time, do before I use the site and/or may do in the future to improve and expand the site.

For example I would:

• add an instruction to write the scores of the HP (etc) exercises in the word document.
• while I don't care what they are, they may make the students take more care. Or may be a bad idea if they make students anxious.
  
• add pictures and bells and whistles
• I know it could be prettier. And the background makes some things hard to read. And the colour scheme... well. I'll stop there.
  
• Add a "tell/write a story from your culture" or "listen to these stories online" extension activity.
  
• I suggested some extension stories in my essay, some of which could be done as individual or pair work extension activities. Of course, the extension activitites may become longer than the actual activities, in which case I could just make more of them required!
  
• Use tables more as fake frames.
• I have to admit I haven't mastered frames - this time round I didn't even try, due to time constraints. I did master tables, though, and I think I could give the illusion of frames by making the same table on each page with the appropriate links in it. Might make navigation and the process clearer. It would also make it easier to put each step on a separate page, perhaps with a "next" button.
  
• actually register for hot potatoes so that I can write longer and better exercises.
• I should have this time, but I only wanted short activities anyway. Really.

I'm sure there are other things I would do to fiddle with it. I am thinking of adding a teacher page, with most of my essay as procedure and justification, just in case anyone else ever wanted to use it. And wanted to be informed.

Although I haven't had any comments from class members yet (and don't expect them til after the assignment is due) I did ask my friend Kate to look at the page and check for anything I missed. She also went through and did all the exercises, not only making sure they worked, but also that I hadn't written anything impossible, or ambiguous. Her comments were positive, although she didn't like the crossword program very much. I agree that there are better ones out there, but perhaps not so easy to use, or so free.

I will comment on others' projects just as soon as I have slept. Although I won't have time in the morning, and I'm not sure when my next internet access will be. I will though.

So that's it.
I'm done.

WooHoo!