Web Technology Fun Project

Description & Goals

This class - WRA 410 - is an unusual time in the lives of web authors. It is a moment of formal learning. With goals, projects, readings, and assessments. Most of the learning you will do as a web author is not like this. It is informal. This project - the Web Technology Fun or WTF project - is all about learning to learn in an informal way.

The Main Goals I have for this project are to r

  1. Learn to evaluate sources of information about new techniques and technologies for web authoring
  2. Work with several sources (2 or 3 in this case) to scaffold your own learning
  3. Develop strategies for experimentation, testing, and production using informal learning resources
  4. Stretch your capabilities a little by implementing a new technology or technique into your porfolio site

Each student will be responsible for adding to their portfolios some feature – the type and function is up to you - that takes some new learning on your part. You will turn in your work in the similar way you did for Unit 2.

As before, you will do some writing about your learning process. In fact, documenting your learning process is the main goal of this assignment. A secondary goal is implementing your new web technology. Your writing will be a learning narrative - presented as a page in your portfolio site. It should include:

  1. A Pre-flective piece that you do to set some goals, talk about the technology and the "stretch" it represents for you.
  2. An account of your learning phase - your experience of the learning materials and your takeaways from those, and an account of your implementation phase, attempts, successes, setbacks, etc.
  3. A Reflective piece after you've completed the project, looking back and re-evaluating your progress toward the goals you set earlier.
  4. A version of your portfolio with the new technology integrated in.
Remember, the key is to pay attention to your learning!

Web authoring can be intimidating, but also rewarding. The goal here is for you to develop a sense of how you learn best in informal ways, what resources work well for you and which ones do not, etc.

Criteria - How Can I Be Successful in the WTF Project?

When evaluating your work, I'll be looking at just one thing:

  1. Have you written thoughtfully about your work, what you wanted to learn and what you did learn? I expect that you'll put some time into your reflective and public-facing portfolio work. You should make the goals and criteria in this document clear as a scaffold for your own thinking in these pieces, but you should also personalize these and set some goals for yourself.