Download Developing learning materials efficiently for web access as

Developing Learning Materials Efficiently for Web Access
as Well as for Printing and for Projection in a Classroom
Nieuwenhuysen, Paul
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (V.U.B.), Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussel, Belgium
[email protected]
Abstract: Presents a strategy for the development of learning materials that
are suitable for access through the WWW, and that can also be used
efficiently for the creation of printed study materials as well as for
projection during meetings with the students in a classroom. Maintaining
and developing one master saves time and avoids differences in various
versions.
0 Introduction
This contribution focuses on a strategy for the development of learning materials that are suitable for
access through the WWW, and that can also be used efficiently for the creation of printed study
materials as well as for projection during meetings with students in a classroom. Instead of replacing
more traditional learning materials with web based versions only, or instead of developing materials
for the web separately, besides more traditional versions, only one master is created for each
document. This master is created so that it can be made accessible easily through the web, that it can
be directly used to print each document and that it can be applied for projection from a notebook pc.
The courses for which this strategy is developed, tested and applied are organised at the Vrije
Universiteit Brussel and at the University of Antwerp, in Belgium.
1 Methods Developed and Tested to Create Learning Materials
The software packages applied are common, well known, cheap and well updated, at least in
comparison with most of the more dedicated programs to create and maintain a learning
environment.
The following computer programs and file formats are used:
 To manage the Web site: Microsoft FrontPage.
 To create slide presentations: Microsoft PowerPoint, saving each presentation as a show
(PPS files, the master files) from which a version for the web is derived in HTML / XML.
 To create and maintain other documents than presentations: Microsoft Word, saving most
files in Rich Text Format or in HTML / XML format for the following reasons. On most
pc's a program is available to view the document in this file format (which is not the case
with proprietary formats such as the Word DOC version 95 or 97/2000 formats). The
formats allow printing accurately (which is not the case with classical HTML documents).
This works without the need for an additional, extra master version plus conversion after
each modification (which is not the case for instance with Adobe PDF).
Most work has been done with at least two of the previous versions and with the present version
2000 of these programs.
Many of the created documents contain links to web-based sources, and as all files are incorporated
in one 'web', FrontPage can be used efficiently to check those links together with all the other links
in the 'web', and to reveal other possible deficiencies.
Problems met in the transition to newer versions of Microsoft Office include the following:
 The conversion of FrontPage 98 to 2000 forced us to convert the web from mixed case to
lowercase only, as we use Unix servers that are case sensitive.
 The conversion of PowerPoint version 95 files to version 97 files caused an inversion of
many arrows in the images on the slides.

The conversion of PowerPoint 97 to 2000 caused two colors to be taken from the existing
color schemes for unvisited and visited hyperlinks. Consequently, colors indicating links
were not suitable, but changing these colors caused unwanted changes in other parts also.
 Saving Word and PowerPoint files in HTML format (including XML) has become more
powerful but also more complicated, so that the help provided by the software package was
not sufficient anymore to understand the process and to make reasonable decisions.
On the positive side, the 2000-versions of the programs are better now for application in a web
environment. For instance:
 Files saved as web pages keep most of the information that is present in the richer
proprietary Microsoft file formats, by using XML in the files.
 Slides containing PowerPoint animations could not be converted with version 97 to HTML
plus images for access through the web, but version 2000 can accomplish this; even
animated slide transitions can be converted to HTML.
 Animated GIF files were displayed with PowerPoint 97 as static images only, but version
2000 displays the animations.
 The URL's mentioned in the slides can easily be made into hyperlinks that can really be
used directly in the web, like in any other HTML web page.
 The slides are resizable, not fixed as the GIF or JPG images that can be created
automatically from each slide by PowerPoint 97.
 A slide can cover the whole screen display, independent of the resolution of the user's
display, which was not the case with PowerPoint 97, and which allows a much nicer display
than a more common HTML page displayed by a web browser.
 Notes coming with a slide show can be shown if wanted, simultaneously, together with the
corresponding slide.
 When PowerPoint 97 is used to save a presentation as web pages, a separate pure text
version of the slides is created besides a version consisting of GIF or JPG images only.
Version 2000 however can save a PowerPoint presentation file as a set of files using HTML
with XML, so that text and images are 'married' together; one of the advantages is that the
contents of the real slides can be indexed by search engines for later retrieval through the
web, whereas with version 97 only the 'unused' text versions were indexed.
Some problems are still experienced with version 2000 of the programs. For instance, the
presentations in the form of slides can only be offered as web pages with high quality and high
fidelity, when one particular choice is made of the several options offered by PowerPoint 2000 to
save as web pages; in that case, the resulting presentation can only be seen when Microsoft's own
Internet Explorer version 4 or 5 is used, not by users of another browser like Netscape up to the
recent version (4.6).
Communication with students is supported by standard Internet electronic mail. Everyone can
choose a client program.
2 Learning Materials Created and Made Available
The topics are all related to information literacy, mainly focusing on applications of information
technology and on information retrieval.
Documents that support learning include the following.
 For each course, one document presents an overview of the contents, the aims, and the
evaluation procedure. This is made accessible through the web and is provided printed to
each regular student taking the course.
 Series of slides (presentations) offer the course contents, including questions, tasks,
problems, practical exercises for the students and links to external information. These are
made available as a book and through the web as HTML with XML.
 One file makes a table of contents available for all the slides.
 An extensive bibliography is offered through the web about the subjects covered in the
courses, structured in chapters.
 Web pages serve as container for those documents, and offer a few links to external
information, but most of the links are included in an appropriate context in the documents
mentioned above.
Up to now the starting page is http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/personal/nieuwenhuysen/courses/