Web content creation
From AptivateOER
Contents |
This is an article about teaching web content creation.
For somebody who primarily wants to be a content author (as opposed to a web designer), it may be more important to learn a particular content management system, rather than web design from scratch. So this page (as part of Basic ICT Training) is aimed at basic web content creation, not at fully fledged web design (which are distinct anyway).
[edit] 1 Content creation, web design, web hosting
[edit] 1.1 The role of the content management system
Most people may initially want to create content, and may not be too bothered about the details of the design. Logically these are separate concerns, and in the modern day web world this separation of concern is taken care of through the use of a content management system.
In the 'old days', the same person might run a web server ('web hosting'), create basic html ('web design'), and popular this html with written text ('web content'). Nowadays, you have a content management system, where
- A person with web hosting experience runs whatever software is needed.
- A person with design experience creates well designed page templates.
- A content author provides the content.
A content management system helps to separate these concerns. For instance, the content author can freely update content, without having to worry about breaking the design or the underlying software.
[edit] 1.2 What do your students want to learn?
Because the skills in those three different areas (hosting/design/content) are quite different, it makes sense to teach them separately. For a basic ICT course, it may well be the case that most of your students primarily want to learn about content creation, in which case they should not be encumbered by having to learn about hosting/design first.
For a more advanced course, you may of course want to cover some hosting/design also, and there is of course a value in understanding this.
However, being able to use a content management system well is also a highly desirable skill, and in fact a skill that would make you more employable in many Northern educational institutions (while knowing how to author html is only useful if you are very proficient at it).
[edit] 1.3 What is a 'hosted service'?
You may also find that most people probably won't have access to 'web hosting facilities'. Even larger institutions in developing countries find it difficult to pay their internet bills, and using hosted services can really help.
So what is a hosted service? An analogy with YouTube might help: Hosting videos on your own server is not straight forward, and requires quite a bit of infrastructure and knowledge. However, registering on YouTube is easy, and most kids work out how to post videos for themselves. YouTube is an example of a 'hosted' service, where you put content onto somebody elses server, who hosts it for you, as opposed to a piece of software or 'html code' that you run on/put onto your own server.
For creating web content, hosted services include wordpress, blogger, and google sites. For most of these the basic version of the service is free, but if you need more space, you can upgrade.
[edit] 1.4 Advantages and disadvantages
Using a 'hosted service' is a way of letting your students get straight to the content,
Of course a 'hosted' service isn't as flexible as hosting content on your own server, but it has the big advantage that it's free, and also that the default templates you get look good.
A disadvantage is that many websites (including some of the hosted services) aren't that low-bandwidth friendly, so they may be hard to access. Also, they require you to be online to edit content, so it depends on how good your internet connectivity is.
[edit] 2 How to teach in a bandwidth restricted environment
This section is more technical.
[edit] 2.1 Example: The Email training environment for the Samfya summer school
You may find yourself in a situation like this: When we were in Zambia, there were two sites that were used.
- There was the site where the summer school took place. This had poor, very expensive, temporary connectivity.
- The future resource centre that had better and cheaper connectivity.
So we had to train in situation 1, but students would then find themselves in situation 2. So to give people a good experience, we used a local email system, that was completely identical to the normal system the students would be using (including the url used to access it). Except that emails sent were only sent locally, and so the students could only email eachother, but that was sufficient. Once the summer school was over, the email system was 'switched over' to the real system. The only change as far as the students were concerned was that they could now also email people elsewhere.
[edit] 2.2 Application to wordpress and mediawiki
If the teaching facility is under one's own control, one could use a similar system for content management systems where the webhosting software is available (as open source). This is the case for example for wordpress and mediawiki. For instance, using wordpress, the wordpress software can be installed locally, and students can practice that way. Of course the training should include setting up a wordpress account, so that students can start using the real site lateron.
This may make sense even when you are teaching in the actual internet cafe that will be used later: During the course, you have many people working on their sites, and you want to make progress quickly. Lateron, you may not have everybody working at the same time.
[edit] 3 Case studies
[edit] 3.1 Wordpress
Free to set up.
Disadvantage is that the authoring backend is very bandwidth intensive, and definitely won't work over GPRS. There is a mobile interface.
The sites created are bandwidth intensive, but no worse than typical web pages.
Wordpress is free software, data can be migrate later if local hosting is desired.
[edit] 3.2 Mediawiki and wikieducator
There is no hosted service, but there are various wikis that may be appropriate. For instance, the present wiki could serve for OERs relating to ICT. Wikieducator could be used for more general educational content, or wikibooks for book publishing. So the scenario here is the pubishing of an academic text, that fits into an existing wiki.
Mediawiki is free software, it can be installed locally, and data can be migrated as desired.
[edit] 4 Other ideas for web content hosting
- Flickr for images
- YouTube for video
