The Hindu : Web-based course management tool

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 14, 2003

Business

Business

Web-based course management tool

THIS WEEK NetSpeak takes a look at a software package that can be used by educators to float feature-packed teaching web sites.

Among the several facets of life that have been altered by the web, teaching/learning holds a prominent position. Though information on any subject is available on the Net, it cannot replace teachers and the various teaching/evaluation techniques employed by them. But it is also true that by using the web technology a teacher can make her job more effective and productive.

For example, instead of distributing course materials separately to each of the participants, a tutor can host it on the campus web so that students can download it as and when they need. Apart from course materials, the instructor can post assignments, exercises, announcements and the like also on the web. Another advantage of roping in the Net infrastructure for the teaching endeavour is that it allows the teacher easily deploy such collaboration tools as chat/discussion forums and thereby make the course more interactive and engaging.

So, a web-based teaching tool that enables a tutor to do such teaching related tasks as distributing course documents, exercises, announcements and conducting discussion on the subject being taught will certainly improve the teaching quality. But the challenge is that, like other teaching tools, a teacher should be able to operate this tool also independently. That is, he should be able to create a course web site with aforementioned features without the help of a web specialist. The free, open-source, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL PHP)-based software package, `Claroline' is an excellent example of such a tool.

Claroline

Claroline is a software package that can be used by a teacher to float/administer a course web site with discussion forums, chat tool and other communication features that aid collaboration/information dissemination. Using this tool a teacher can publish his course materials created in any format — Word, HTML or PDF — with a few mouse clicks. He does not need to have any HTML, database or programming skills. The only requirement is that he should have access to a web server with PHP and MySQL support.

Setting-up

To set-up the Claroline course-site, download the software archive file (http://www.claroline.net/index.php) and expand it in your web document directory. Now, run the installation script by entering the URL: http://localhost /claroline142/claroline/install/

After successful installation, the system will display the initial page of the course web site, which can be customised by logging-in to the system as `admin' user. Claroline comes with such built-in course categories as Economics, Sciences, Law and Medicine. You can eliminate some or all of them and add your own categories. When you create a course site, you can make it accessible by anyone on the web or make it private so that only registered users of the course will have access to it.

After successful registration, to create a course, access the option `Create Course'. At this point the system will present an input page where the instructor has to fill in such course related details as its name, category and the like. Once you click `OK', a site with Forum, Agenda and Document manager will be created.

Under the `course list' you will find your courses listed and to feed course materials or access the various features of the course site, click on the course name. The system will now display the course `admin' page with access points to such tools as Agenda, Announcements, Documents, Exercises, Assignments and Forums. You can use these tools to populate the course site with content by posting relevant materials under appropriate headings. For example, you can place the course materials under the `Documents' section. To post course materials under this section, click on the `Documents' label, enter the document file name in the input box and click on the `Upload' button.

Overlib: JavaScript library for pop-up windows

It is probable that many of you have already tried your hand at web site creation and certainly some of you may have very active web sites. An important aspect of web page design is that one should be able to present as much information as possible in a page and it should be easily accessible to the visitor. For example, if on a section of the web page's text you mention a new technology, say, Wi-Fi, it would be appropriate if you can provide more information on Wi-Fi that can further enlighten the reader instantly.

One easy method is to make Wi-Fi a hypertext and link it to another page or site that deals with this technology. Though this method serves the purpose, it may not always be effective as it can distract the reader's attention. Just to know the definition of a technical term an ordinary reader may not be keen to do such tasks as moving to another page/site, reading the content and then returning to the current page. In such situations the optimum technique would be to provide the information on the current page itself. That is, when the reader comes to the term `Wi-Fi', provide some mechanism that helps him find the meaning of this term there itself. For example, one can attach with the word `Wi-Fi' a mouse-over pop-up window that contains its meaning so that whenever the reader moves his mouse over the word this information window pops-up.

Perhaps you may think that to implement such features you need programming skills. Though this involves some programming effort, you can implement it even if you have little programming skills with the help of the free JavaScript library `Overlib'.

To make use of this tool, download the JavaScript library file and place it on the same directory where your web pages are kept.

Once the script file is placed in the web page directory, by just entering a few html codes you can easily create pop-up content windows. Using the Overlib library you can create different kinds of pop-up windows that include plain pop-up, pop-up window with a caption and sub-menu pop-up window. Check out this link (http://jmn27.tripod.com/overlib.htm) for a small demo page created by this author. For more details, click at: http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/

On-line HTTP viewer

When a browser contacts a web server for a web page, apart from the content displayed by it, the browser receives other information bits also. Are you curious to know the details of the communication that takes place between your browser and web server that hosts a web page while you click on a web link? If so, access the free web-based HTTP viewer (http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html), and enter the URL of a web page. The service will display various header details and page's content with HTML codes.

Correction

The URL of the file archive program, 7-zip, is: http://www.7-zip.org/.

J. Murali

Email the author at: murali27@satyam.net.in

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