Helen Merrick
Web Publishing 206
Unit brief
The web is, to a large extent, a medium of written communication; this unit offers you a practically oriented, conceptually based approach by which you can become more effective in written publishing on the Internet. First, you will closely engage with the practicalities of writing online, across different styles and genres and exploring how its technologies support creativity and innovation. Second, you will learn about the contexts and ‘channels’ of public online writing. Finally, you will consider key underlying information issues such as relevance, credibility, authority and utility.
Assessment structure
This unit is designed as an authentic learning experience which models real-world knowledge work as closely as possible and then integrates within it, adaptively, the requirements for a unit of study. The authentic learning experience in the unit is the development by each student of a blog, serving as the central node of their web presence, at which, during the course of the study period, students write a series of articles which explore both the skills to be learned and themes of the unit.
The unit links closely to Web Communications 101, which first introduced students to this kind of public writing to build their web presence. The assessment reflects this approach:
Assignment 1 Annotated Bibliography 15%
Assignment 2 Online Content Creation 25%
Assignment 3 Portfolio Reflection 60%
Essentially, the portfolio contains selected examples of the ongoing content creation that is central to the unit, plus a reflective essay. The second assignment provides a chance for students to submit early examples, for assessment, but more importantly to gain feedback to guide their work as the unit progresses.
Knowledge networking innovation
Activity and tasks
Effectively, the entire unit is the innovation because it assumes, primarily, that students are writing for a real-world audience, with a purpose outside of the confines of study, and that only after this work has been done is it, effectively, turned ‘into’ an assessment. Of course, this authenticity is to some extent a fiction: there is always a sense of the work being both real and artificial, both ‘my life’ and ‘my study’ from a student view.
More specifically, a key innovation for knowledge networking was to emphasise for students the continuity between what was done in WEB101 and here:
“If you have completed Web101…you will necessarily have set up some kind of central Web presence (Typically a blog). The majority of the writing tasks are to be published there. In some cases this is optional depending on whether you feel the task is congruent with the other content on your site – check the details of each task for the requirements”
Technology used
Students either created a new website or continued with the blog from WEB101; they were also able to establish other kinds of sites (wikis, their own standard websites and so on) depending on their level of technical knowledge and interest:
“If you have developed (or wish to develop) an alternative Web presence such as a traditional website, a Wiki or any other form of presence, you should let your tutor know so that they can assess whether this is a suitable repository for your work in this unit.”
Examples
http://web206.wordpress.com/
(note the self-consciously “I am studying” feel to this example)
http://thepercussivesweetspot.blogspot.com/p/web-206.html
(showing some students approach the task more authentically than others)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fyawnym/sets/72157625346366454/
(some students continued to use other Web 2.0 applications to interlink with their publishing)
http://rhysatwork.com/CCinGov/category/web206/page/2/
(the results are often impressive!)
Lessons and Directions
Students responded very positively to the task, but with two distinct approaches. Some took seriously the need to establish themselves as a writer and commentator on issues, hobbies and passions outside of study, bringing their reality into the picture to make the work as authentic as possible (authenticity can never be achieved solely by the teacher: it’s a partnership). Others, perhaps pragmatically, ‘played’ at the authenticity, but kept the publishing firmly in the artificial category. however, in all cases, the public quality of the work – especially when viewed by other students – made the unit feel much more focused on student collaboration (informal collaboration) rather than on writing solely for the teacher.
A further direction will be for students to begin using Web 2.0 applications to create and manage their bibliographies, with the opportunity then to interlink them with their blog: this activity is currently undertaken in other units, but has been used successfully in the predecessor to Web206 and will re-appear in future.
Another direction to be taken will be to exploit the ever-increasing array of presentation tools (such as Prezi) and alternative publishing genres (for example LiveBinders) to create additional materials and create alternative forms of ‘publishing’.
See also Examples of authentic learning in Internet Communications II: WEB206
