Adventures in SuperComputing - Summer Teacher Institute

Dreamweaver Fundamentals

Dreamweaver Main

Planning

Research

Development

Refinement

Implementation

Example Site

Resources

Research Phase

The research stage follows the planning stage so that learners can explore the knowledge base and deepen it through independent or cooperative research activities. This includes searching on the Internet for useful sources of information, but also for sharing these resources in discussion formats. The skills of the library media specialist are critical to this phase, as strategies for information acquisition and evaluation are vital to research. To follow the previous example, the ideas in the concept maps and the questions that the learners generate can now be explored in greater depth by looking at sources on the Internet. Research activities give the students the ability to retain these facts by affording them the opportunity to think critically, to work through problems logically, and to make connections with the real world.

As the primary tools of the Internet, browsers (such as Netscape and Internet Explorer) and e-mail can be very useful at this point for research. With the browsers, many features can be shown and taught as a precursor to each individual research session, such as making bookmarks, clearing the cache, and setting the colors for fonts and links. The use of e-mail is vital in today’s research and is a nice complement to using Web sites for information, since it personalizes the exchange of information gathering.

This may lead the learner back to the planning stage to deepen and broaden the knowledge base, since the research will allow for greater content to be added to the concept maps and research-driving questions. Often when learners have little practical understanding of a subject area, their research will only drive them to understand how little they actually know about the topic. It may also reinforce the fact that they know a lot about the area of study. At this point, the instructor can facilitate sharing using concept maps and information gathered from Web sites and e-mail. The learners can share this information and drive to a deeper collective understanding.

Exercise - Researching of Web Sites

There are many high quality Web Sites built and maintained on the Internet. In the Resources section of this class, there are a good number of basic design constructs as well as understanding on HTML. You should continually look at different Web Sites in order to see what is happening both in content and design.

See Macromedia Dreamweaver Reference Text - Chapters 3 and 8