TUNE IN THE NET WORKSHOP: GLOBAL REACH FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
"Tune In the Net Workshop: Global Reach for the 21st Century" is an
eight week distance learning workshop focusing on tools for Internet
interactivity and conducted via e-mail and the World Wide Web (WWW).
The workshop will introduce the beginner to the basic concepts of
interactivity, and assist the more experienced user in making his or her
Web pages into a stand-out interactive site.
BACKGROUND
Interactivity is the ability of the Internet user to alter certain
aspects of his or her environment, resulting in useful functionality.
It is the method of control and contingent response between user and
medium. Some popular terms to describe interactive systems include
multimedia, hypermedia, infotainment and edutainment. Interactivity can
be as simple as an animation or as complex as a multi-user game played
over the Internet. However, most users will find practical interactive
applications more useful--applications such as hooking up HTML forms to
virtual shopping cart or on-line sales catalog scripts in order to
enhance a commercial site. Interactivity provides many ways to obtain
input from users, including the ability to make regions of an image
active so that a click on a "hot spot" will activate a link to another
Web page or initiate some other action. Users may also interact with
the Web page itself. Some examples of this include a self-assessment
quiz for a Web course, a price comparison calculator for a commercial
site, or a decision assistant, such as a color picker.
Internet site builders and Web page generators have become increasingly
sophisticated, incorporating "wizards" in order to simplify the work of
authors. These wizards provide templates and other useful functions
that enable authors to produce Web pages with little or no HTML coding
by hand.
JavaScript and VBScript have been introduced to provide scripting
capability for the two most widely used Web browsers, Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft Internet Explorer, respectively. These simple-to-use
scripting languages allow a content author to write short programs that
can be activated by various Web page elements including buttons, forms,
backgrounds, and frames.
Scripts can also be used to program Web servers, as well as browsers, in
order to make content interactive. Server scripts are short programs
that provide additional Web server capabilities, such as processing
information from Web page forms. The most common way to provide
interactivity to Web pages is through Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Web
server scripts. Despite their popularity, CGI scripts can be awkward in
some cases and may place unnecessary demands on the Web server. When
they can be used, browser scripts are usually preferable to server
scripts as they cut down on unnecessary requests to the often heavily
taxed Web server.
With the introduction of the Java language by Sun Microsystems in 1995,
the Internet has become a rapidly evolving means for delivering
interactive content using text, graphics, audio, and video. Java is
quite different from the above mentioned Web server or browser
scripting. It is a platform-independent programming language with
built-in security and network communications capabilities. Java
programs, or applets, can be launched from a Web browser, or may operate
independently from the Web, with direct access to the Internet. Several
Java builder programs, such as JFactory and Marimba's Bongo, permit
experts in a given domain of knowledge, but who have limited programming
experience, to produce interactive content using easy-to-use graphical
tools. Java is also increasingly being used for application programs,
such as word processors, spreadsheets, and database front-ends. Java's
built-in networking and security make it ideal for so-called "push"
media, wherein applications and content are updated often over a network
when new information and new versions of the software become available.
For example, a Java-based on-line newspaper can be updated with breaking
news on the user's desktop frequently, and automatically, during the
day.
WORKSHOP CONTENT
The Tune In the Net Workshop will focus on how to efficiently and
effectively design and use interactive Internet sites. During the
workshop you will learn how to:
* quickly prototype Web pages and complete sites using page generators
and site builders such as Netscape Navigator Gold, Microsoft
FrontPage, NetObjects Fusion, and Adobe PageMill and SiteMill.
* make Web page forms and link them to useful applications such as
databases, key word searches, guest books, and user surveys.
* give Web pages an interactive graphical look with client-side image
maps. This capability of both Navigator and Internet Explorer permits
clicking on different regions of an image in order to link to another
Web page or function.
* make animations. This often entails using an image-file format that
will display multiple frames as the file loads.
* use frames, HTML 3.2, as well as Netscape and Microsoft extensions, to
customize Web pages. The latter consist of HTML functionality
developed separately by each company that has yet to be officially
accepted as part of the recognized standard.
* use JavaScript and VBScript to give Web pages interactive
capabilities, such as personalizing pages with names and e-mail
addresses, displaying current date and time, image-flipping to produce
buttons that highlight, providing colored backgrounds that appear to
fade in from one color to another, and other special effects.
* utilize "push" media. For example, to use Netscape's InBox Direct and
explore new frontiers such as Marimba channels with Bongo. Bongo is a
Java applet, or application builder, that enables one to develop a
Java applet or application for Marimba Castanet, a new way of
distributing information on the Internet in which programs and content
become "channels" on one's computer desktop.
HOW TO SIGN UP
Three Tune In The Net Workshops are scheduled for this fall:
Session III .............. September 2 - October 25
Session IV ............... September 22 - November 15
Session V ................ October 13 - December 6
The cost of the workshop is $40 US.*
To sign up for the workshop, please send an e-mail message to:
majordomo@arlington.com
and in the body of the message, place
subscribe tune3
to sign up for Session III, or
subscribe tune4
to sign up for Session IV, or
subscribe tune5
to sign up for Session V.
Or, sign up online by pointing to the URL
http://www.bearfountain.com/arlington/tune.html
In order to gain maximum advantage from the Tune In the Net Workshop, it
will be necessary to have a Web browser, preferably either a recent
version of Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The workshop leader, Thomas P. Copley,Ph.D. has successfully taught
several on-line courses in the past, including, most recently, "Make the
Link Workshop" during 1995 and 1996, and the "Go-pher-it Workshop" in
1994. He has been actively involved in on-line teaching for more than a
decade, and has been a consultant to Apple Computer, Inc. He is also
one of the founders of the Electronic University, and has been on the
faculty of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and Washington State
University. He is the editor of an electronic newsletter, the
Telelearning Network Synthesizer.
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* A 12.5% discount is available to anyone who has already participated
in "Make the Link Workshop"(MLW), or intends to do so now. While not a
prerequisite for the "Tune In the Net Workshop"(TINW), MLW provides
complimentary information that may also be of interest to many
participants in TINW. With the discount the cost of TINW is $35US, and
for MLW the cost is $20. For both workshops the cost is $55. For more
information about MLW, send email to links-ad@arlington.com or access
the URL <http://www.bearfountain.com/arlington/links.html>.
________________________________________________________________
THOMAS P. COPLEY tcopley@arlington.com
Make the Link Workshop www.bearfountain.com/arlington/
