Practical Course Materials Online
mathematics > presentations > practical course materials online > introductionIntroduction
Short Description
What is a practical, reproducible, sustainable, consumable, and scalable method for delivering course materials online? Write your own webpages collecting, creating, modifying, and curating content as necessary! You can start small, you can go big. You own the format and structure. Keep the focus of your learning on your subject. Encourage your colleagues and institutions to avoid software service and maintenance costs where appropriate.
"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." - Henry David Thoreau.
Implementation
I implement my philosophy at my website: Dave's Web Corner where anyone can find all of my course materials, free and unrestricted.
mathematics > presentations > practical course materials online > basicBasic
- Every website begins with an index page, a text file that the web browser will load by default.
- welcome is a simple index page created by an HTML file index.html (printout of index.html)
- an HTML file is a text file that contains <head> and
<body> elements
- the <head> element contains other elements that document the properties of the page like title, keywords, author, or other tools used on the page
- the <body> element contains other elements that document the content of the page like header, footer, nav, and main sections
- major links direct visitors to key sections of website
Intermediate
- semesters contains more features (printout of semesters.html)
- lists to organize information
- links to direct visitors to semesters and courses
- links are anchors in HMTL, which contain a property, called a hypertext reference or href for short, the tells the web browser where to find the web page or resource that you are linking to
- "breadcrumb" links to orient visitors
- lists and links are among the most common HTML elements for delivering information, but they go a very long way.
Detailed
- semesters > fall 2021 > mth264 > week 1, one week in a course (printout of 264week01.html)
- links to external files (pdfs, proprietary files)
- links to external services (YouTube, Google Drive, Desmos)
- examples of ADA compliant mathematics presentation in an HTML page (MathJax)
Resources
- HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
- HTML Tutorial (W3Schools)
- HTML5: the missing manual (ISBN-13: 978-1449363260)
- Text Editors
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP)