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 __     __ __     __ __     __  web's eye view
| | /| / /| | /| / /| | /| / /  March 20, 2001 
| |/ |/ / | |/ |/ / | |/ |/ /   Maricopa Center for 
|__/|__/  |__/|__/  |__/|__/      Learning & Instruction
..........................................................
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/eye/
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The freshest bag of URLs is ready for pickup at
   http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/eye/bag/curr.html


Help us refill by dropping interesting sites into:
   http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/eye/bag/drop.html

Web Screen Real Estate: The Myth of 800x600

===========================================

James Kalbach writes this information (and statistics-packed)

article on the fallacy of designing web pages for certain screen

sizes:



  http://webreview.com/2001/03_16/webauthors/index01.shtml



And he offers some different types of design approaches for being

efficient with your pixel real estate.



Publishers Try To Evolve from Print to ...

==========================================

from EDUPAGE March 16, 2001



TEACHING OLD DOGS

With online courses and electronic textbooks becoming more

popular, academic publishers such as McGraw-Hill, Thomson

Learning, and Houghton Mifflin have been forced to find ways to

produce value-added digital content. The process is very costly,

requiring publishers to enable texts to be searched, read, and

sold digitally, and will likely not generate revenue for some

time, but the companies see no choice. McGraw-Hill has entered

the digital-content field with a subscription-based science and

technology service and has also produced a software product that

helps professors prepare class Web sites. Meanwhile, electronic

textbook sales could get a boost by giving students the ability

to buy only portions of a text, rather than the entire thing;

this recognizes the fact that many professors assign only part

of the textbook, but students currently must buy the entire book.

(Wall Street Journal, 12 March 2001)



from EDUPAGE March 9, 2001



TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS TRY ONLINE EDUCATION

Textbook publishers McGraw-Hill and Pearson are taking different

paths to a successful business strategy for the online education

market. The McGraw-Hill Learning Network focuses on interactive

versions of its textbooks. Buzz Ellis, president of McGraw-Hill's

School Education Group, says online versions for the entire

curriculum are under development in pilot programs, including one

at Celebration School in Celebration, Fla. Eventually, the

publisher will offer electronic versions of the curriculum for

sale along with the print version both to schools and parents.

Pearson, based in England, focuses on free Web-based education

tools for teachers, students, and parents through the Pearson

Learning Network. Pearson bought the site from the Family

Education Network last year. Phil Hoffman, the director of the

site, says the Learning Network has been enormously popular,

tallying more than 100 million page views each month when school

is in session, and has over 10,000 schools registered with its

home page and online grading services. Hoffman aims to extend

the site's reach from the current K-12, adult learning, and

professional training markets to higher education by the end

of summer. (New York Times Online, 7 March 2001)



Ignoring A Web Audience of 500 million People...

================================================

is what you are doing if you ignore accessibility issues. Read

more in this Web Review article



  http://www.webreview.com/2001/03_16/webauthors/index04.shtml



Everyone is Teaching Online?

============================

from EDUPAGE March 5, 2001



LEARNING FROM A DISTANCE

Of the more than 4,000 two- and four-year colleges in the United 

States, 70 percent provided online courses last year, a 22 

percent rise from 1998, reported Market Retrieval Service. 

American Federation of Teachers vice president Bill Scheuerman 

stressed the need for institutions to approach e-learning with 

care, saying "If you're going to do it right, it's going to cost 

you money." Among the criteria e-learning should meet, 

Scheuerman suggested training for faculty and 24-hour tech 

support for both faculty and students. A recent survey by the 

AFT revealed that Web-based e-learning is the most common form 

of distance education, most often used for career or science 

and math classes, with humanities classes next. Education and 

child development classes were less likely to be online, the 

AFT found. However, not all e-learning classes meet only online. 

Joe Moran, who coordinates the adult education master's program 

at Buffalo State College, explained that his institution's 

program asks students to come to the classroom once a week. 

Moran said this arrangement lets students interact and work on 

cooperative assignments, two features that can be lost in a 

strictly Web-based operation.

(Business First of Buffalo Online, 26 February 2001)



from EDUPAGE March 2, 2001

COLLEGES MASTER ONLINE LEARNING

International Data forecasts that 2.2 million college students

will take part in distance-learning courses in 2002, compared to

710,000 in 1998. "Demand for online courses is much greater than

our ability to create and staff classes," said Bob Tolsma,

executive director of the University of Colorado at Denver's

Colorado Online program. University officials claim many of the

students who are fueling this boom in online learning are

returning students who have full-time jobs preventing them from

being full-time students or who reside too far from campus to

attend class regularly. However, America Securities analyst

Howard Block predicted that eventually all students will be taking

at least one online course.

(InformationWeek Online, 26 February 2001)