Angela Kasimis
10786287
This component of my final report provides a reflection on my learning against my learning plan objectives as well as an overall reflection of my learning, what I achieved, how I achieved it and an account of the process of building my website.
Other components of my project include:
This is the Tina's Cocina Website.
My blog also provides an account of my learning journey over the semester.
to gain an awareness of a variety of software and hardware technologies relevant to the development and maintenance of websites (as the subject outline describes)
I have definitely achieved this through attendance of lectures, readings and discussions.
to gain this knowledge in context of my current work in the Connected Classrooms Project of NSWDET and education in general.
This subject has also provided me with opportunities to talk with people beyond my directorate (IT) and expand my network e.g. corporate communications directorate.
Although I do feel that the knowledge I have gained has not had as much relevance to the work I am currently doing with the Department as much as I thought it would. Apart from my own reflections in my blogging, I believe I have shifted away from an education focus. I have probably done this because it is not core to the subject itself and my planned project did not have an education focus. I don't believe this is negative, as I believe the knowledge I have gained enhances my skills and contribution to my work in a general sense and into the future. It has been refreshing to think about the technologies in different contexts e.g for commercial needs.
to understand the purpose of the technologies, how they meet users needs, where the demand comes from, where the demand is heading and how solutions (or technologies) are selected for individual purposes.
The work I conducted in the macro and micro analysis and general research/blogging, has helped me achieve this objective. I clearly understand how each technology included in the course impacts users as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each technology, how the technology evolved and where it is going. I have also gained direct hands on experience of CSS, XHTML, Javascript and basic PHP.
The use of peer work and assessment also helped me achieve this objective by trying to understand others goals and how they used technologies to meet those goals.
to demonstrate the XHTML and CSS skills I develop through the production of a simple website
I believe I have developed a good understanding of these two technologies through the production of my website Tina's Cocina. I believe that if I continue to work on websites I will further develop these skills and they will come more naturally to me. Regularly working on the class exercises and developing the assignments in XHTML and some CSS also contributed to the steady development of my skills in this area.
to successfully complete the subject and fulfil each of the assessment tasks
I believe I have submitted all the required assessments for the course.
In terms of skills, I believe I have gained the most out of experimenting with CSS. I feel that I have understood the way (X)HTML and CSS work together and how these technologies have evolved over time and where they are heading. Although working with a blank slate has been challenging, I believe that working through CSS from scratch to present my pages has given me a deeper understanding of CSS than working with a template. I don't think it has been the most efficient way to construct a web page, and I would probably use a template in the future, but for my learning needs it has help me get the most out of my learning. Without necessarily realising my skills have developed, I am now more confidently writing HTML and CSS without needing to look things up as much (just like learning a language).
Other technologies I have successfully experimented include PHP and Javascript. These have been incorporated into my final website. It has been beneficial to move beyond XHTML and CSS within my own project as I believe this has improved the user experience of the website. I have also gained a practical understanding of how these technologies work. I have only gained a basic practical working knowledge of these technologies, but I feel I have understood their role within the 'big picture' of the internet.
I have enjoyed learning about the history and culture of the internet through my readings. I feel that I have understood where the internet is at and how it got there. It has also been interesting to understand the different sub-cultures and streams of thought throughout the development community, in particular the use different technologies to achieve similar outcomes e.g. debates about tables and CSS, Javascript vs CSS etc.
I also believe I have a deeper understanding of the role of W3C and the areas they look after. When I first started this course I knew about accessibility and that it was important to consider during development of web pages and applications. Now I understand the in depth role of W3C and the areas they look after. In particular I have gained a greater understanding of accessibility, in particular WIA, internationalisation, the semantic web as well as the role of W3C in developing new versions of (X)HTML and CSS.
Through both readings and my own practical experiences, I now thoroughly understand ongoing concerns and issues with standards, browsers and where these come from.
I have used different techniques for learning materials in this subject. It has been particularly interesting and beneficial to my own personal and learning development to reflect of my methods of learning throughout process. Keeping the blog has been particularly helpful for my own reflection.
I learned using traditional methods:
Less traditionally (for me):
HTML and CSS
The website was started from scratch using a blank XHTML template. The home page was created with the basic second level navigation links. I then applied CSS to it. This started as an experiment in just trying to work out the navigation although this evolved to be the the real thing. I realised that the most time consuming aspect of setting up the website was the navigation and basic template for the pages. I then set up the third level navigation and the left hand navigation. Once this was right then I could work on content of the site.
Javascript and PHP
I also worked separately on the photo gallery and rotating images on the home page learning about the javascript and implementing it. Finally I completed the PHP rating script. Practicing this earlier in the semester was extremely helpful as timelines became tight and if I had to learn it from scratch at this point it would have been difficult.
I would have liked to implement drop down menus (similar to Jamie Oliver's site, where a user selects a recipe from this menu. This would eliminate the need for a second level page (and one more click) to access the recipes. I did suggest this in my system plan but did not have the time to research and implement this.
Things that helped
The system plan was an extremely useful and practical assignment which helped build the website. I used the system plan regularly to implement the site map, page creation and navigation. I could also check against the requirements in this document to check whether I had fulfilled them.
Things that were difficult
CSS!!. I think I talked about this enough in my blogs, but I found this the most difficult aspect. I do believe that my knowledge and skills have significantly improved and I can notice in myself when I'm writing CSS that it is coming more naturally.
I did have intentions of implementing Lightbox for my photo gallery. I did try this and could get it working but a CSS issue prevented me from fully implementing it. The full issue is documented in my blog.
One of the areas I overlooked in my system plan was a file structure for my web. As a result this is in a slight mess! It was too late before I realised and would have meant a bit of work rechecking all my links. I would keep this as a planning consideration in future.
Deviations from system plan
I removed the page Kid's Say from the website. This was because I felt that in terms of technology it did not introduce anything new to the website. I also didn't collect children's work as initially intended because this would involve a lot of negotiation with the children's centre in collecting permissions from parents. This would still be a nice page to add in the future for parents of the community.
Overall I feel that I underestimated the amount of content to develop within my timeframe. I have created content for all areas, although in some places, it is probably not what I had in mind initially. For example the "Sample menus" page; I have provided a week menu, although I would like this to be several menus in a table format. I don't think that this impacted the learning of the technologies but I feel that to fulfil the requirements and user centred design needs e.g. scenarios, the content would need to be revised in some places.
I have checked my website as I go in Explorer 7, Firefox 3 and Safari 3. I don't have access to a test environment with all browsers, so have not been able to check across all versions or on a Mac.
All pages were validated using the Firebug validation tool. All pages have validated both CSS and XHTML. The pages that contained Javascript (2 pages) I had to change the doctype to transitional in order for them to validate.
I would strongly recommend to anyone with limited experience to validate as they go. As pointed out to me, this helps with identifying any problems in how the page is displaying first off, as well as saving a lot of heartache at the end. If you validate your template, then you can happily reproduce it for your other pages, limiting the amount of errors you have at the end.