I.	Instructional Design Project
A.	Focus of project and how it involves technology:
1.	My focus for this project would be on designing a training program for 7th grade – 8th grade teachers (core areas) to create a classroom webpage using Mozilla Composer.  We use Mozilla Firefox in our school district and very few of our teachers have experience using the composer for this internet browser.  It involves technology because the teachers would have to create a webpage using Mozilla Composer.
B.	How this project teaches about or uses technology
1.	This project would be about the use of technology.  We would be using Mozilla Composer to learn how to create webpages.
C.	Intended Audience:
1.	Teachers in grades 7 – 8 in core areas (Communication Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Math) in my school district.
D.	Instructional Strategies I might use:
1.	It will be extremely important to ascertain the prior knowledge of my teachers concerning website creation to be able to use the most conducive instructional strategies.  One instructional strategy I will use is teaching facts.   The facts presented during the beginning of the training sessions will focus on the basics they are going to need to know to work with the program.  I will cover what all the icons represent and how to use either the icons or the menus to work with the program.  I will also use teaching concepts to help with the actual layout of the website.  It will be important for the participants to understand how the layout needs to have a flow to it and how everything is interrelated. Teaching troubleshooting is extremely important when working with websites.  There are many variables that need manipulated to produce the desired effect.  Basic troubleshooting techniques will be covered so they know where to start looking for the problem.
E.	Reason I am interested in doing this project:
1.	We are an EMINTS-like school in our elementary, so most of the teachers already know how to create websites in that school building.  I have had teachers express an interest in creating websites in my Junior High building (which is 7-8 grades) and I decided this would be a good project to use for this assignment.  Some of my teachers have prior experience on the creation of websites from classes/workshops they have participated in, but none of them have an established website.  We have our own web-server so part of the training would involve how to save to the web-server.

II.	Learning System Goals and Needs Assessment (Part 2 &3)
A.	Describe the problem and list the learning goals – 
1.	The problem is that teachers do not know how to create a website for their class and they would like to learn how to create a web page that can be put on the school’s web server.  
2.	Learning goals:
a)	Learning goal # 1 is to determine what good web design looks like.  Before the students (teachers) start creating their web page, they will research and evaluate other school web pages.  They will use the Internet to research rules on good web design and come up with a list of ten basic rules for good web design. Learning goal # 2 is to learn how to save to the school’s web server.  The students (teachers) will be provided a folder on the server and proper naming conventions will be covered.  Learning goal # 3 is to design a web page. Students (teachers) will be responsible for planning the pages on paper first.  They will be responsible for designing an index page and a minimum of two other pages that link from and back to the index page.

B.	Describe the organizational context – 
1.	Our school district has a lot of technological resources for our teachers and students.  I have a lot of my elementary teachers that already have a functioning website.  My 7th – 8th grade teachers have seen these sites and would like to have one of their own.  EMINTS provided the training for most of my elementary teachers and since we do not have EMINTS in our Junior High that training hasn’t been made available to those teachers.  Most of my teachers have some experience with web design from previous workshops they have attended.  This will be a very small group to work with, so any variances in their skills should not hinder the learning process. Most of my teachers have spent been exposed to other teachers websites, so they have a general idea of what they want to create.  The organizational context I hope to make better is the teacher’s ability to organize information for classroom assignments.  Primarily the teachers want a webpage to put up links to assignments.  The teachers want to provide a way for students to pull information from home if they are absent from school.  The training program will help the teacher be more comfortable creating a webpage and will provide a valuable resource for them.  I want to help the teacher to understand the basics of good web design and how to create/update/maintain a webpage on our web server.
C.	Design a systematic needs assessment procedure – 
1.	I used The Survey System – System Design, to help me understand how surveys are used and the steps to create one.  After reading the Survey Data Collection Methods, I determined that I needed to use the personal interview.  I also used Questionnaire Design to determine the types of questions to ask and how to word them.  Since this is a small group of teachers I decided the best needs assessment procedure to use would be the survey procedure, but to have the survey completed with a personal (face-to-face) interview.  I felt like this procedure would provide the most insight into the needs of the teachers.  The main reason why I want to use the face-to-face interview is because I can ask for clarification concerning certain answers.  Also, this will provide the opportunity for my teachers to provide me more detailed answers which will lead to a better understanding of their needs.  Although this will take a little longer to complete the survey, I think it will provide a better assessment of the needs.  This needs assessment procedure will address learning goal # 1 by determining how in-depth the lessons will need to be concerning good web design.  It will address learning goal # 2 by determining how much time we will need to spend to understand naming conventions and saving to a folder on the server.  The needs assessment procedure will address learning goal # 3 by determining what types of information the teachers will want to include on their web pages.

D.	Prepare the needs assessment instrument – 
1.	The two assessment instruments I will be preparing are a survey and then the face-to-face interview.  The questions listed below will be the survey questions and then completing the interview using the survey questions will be used to determine the needs of my teachers.  All 7th – 8th grade teachers in core areas will be involved in completing the survey.  I will schedule a time during their prep hour to ask the questions from the survey and record their responses.  Here are the survey questions:
a)	Name three things you think makes a good web page.
b)	Describe three things about a web page that you dislike while you are searching the Internet.
c)	What is your experience with web design?
d)	Previous experience with saving to a web server?
e)	Explain what “basic naming conventions” are and why they are important?
f)	What information do you hope to provide to your students with a webpage?
g)	Do you want to reach other people besides students with your webpage?  If so, who and why?
h)	Purpose of your webpage?
i)	Who is your intended audience?

E.	Prioritize list of needs – 
1.	I used the prioritization tool to rank my list of needs.  I inserted an image of the results from the tool and it is located at the end of this document.  Here’s how the tallies ended up:
a)	# 1 – Basic Naming Conventions (tallies = 7)
b)	# 2 – Saving to a web server (tallies = 6)
c)	# 3 – Experience with Mozilla Composer (tallies = 5)
d)	# 4 – Experience with any Composer (tallies = 4)
e)	# 5 – Purpose of the web page (tallies = 3)
f)	# 6 – Audience (tallies = 2)
g)	# 7 – Rules of web design (tallies = 1)
h)	# 8 – Skill level using backgrounds/tables (tallies = 0)

2.	I was a little surprised that the purpose of the web page wasn’t a higher priority, but after reflecting upon the results I determined that the teachers will need to be able to apply basic naming conventions and be able to save the page or the actual purpose of the web page would be mute because no one would be able to view it.  Another result that I was fascinated by after looking at these results was the fact that all of the needs ended up only being one away from the one above or below them.  I would assume that means that all the needs are closely related.
III.	Objectives and Assessment Plan (Parts 3 & 4)

Learning Goal	Objectives	Assessment Plan	
# 1
Determine what good web design looks like	Following research on the Internet for good web design guidelines, participants will be able determine do’s and don’ts for web design by compiling a list of components and explaining why these components are good or bad.	Do’s and Don’ts
Students will compile at list of at least 10 do’s and 10 don’ts of web design.  Each response must be listed and explained in detail as to how the participant determined whether it was a do or a don’t.	
	Following viewing sample web pages, participants will be able to evaluate web design by completing a checklist to determine if the site met the standards for good web design.	Web Design Checklist 
(see Appendix)
-Adapted from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rwit/files/websites/web_design_checklist.pdf
	
	After reviewing classroom web sites participants will understand the uses of classroom websites by comparing/contrasting five different academic websites.  	Compare/Contrast Table
Create a table that compares and contrasts uses for classroom websites. 
Website to reference:  http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/webdesign/academguidelines.asp

# 2
Learn how to save to the school’s web server.	After reviewing basic file naming conventions, participants will be able to choose the best file name by applying the naming convention.	Filenames
A handout will be provided with 10 sets of filenames to compare and choose the best filename based upon basic naming conventions.
	
	Following examples of saving to the file server, the participants will be able to save a file to the file server by completing a project.	Save the File!
Participants will be provided pages to save to the web server.  	
# 3
Design a web page.	After discussing content for their websites, the participants will be able to create a rough draft (sketch) of their web pages (one index page and two other pages) to be evaluated by two other classmates using a checklist.	Checklist
A checklist to provide feedback to the participants will be completed by two other participants in the class. The checklist will be focused on layout of the design and the relationships between the pages.	
	Following a detailed lecture over Mozilla Composer, the participants will be able to create their webpages by using the Final Project Rubric.	Final Project Rubric
(Appendix)	
IV.	Scenario to Situate Learning (Part 5)
A.	You are suddenly ill and unable to come into work.  One of your students is ill, but would like to keep up on assignments.  What can you do to be prepared for a substitute teacher or to prepare your students to return to class ready to pick up on the current lessons?  On the day of your absence, your lesson plans have you scheduled in the computer lab.  You don’t want your students just “surfing the net” all hour, so you need to devise a way to be prepared for a substitute to come in and still teach the assignment you had planned.  Your students are absent and need a way to keep up with the classroom assignments.  Your goal is to be prepared for these situations.  Your first challenge is to determine what good web design looks like.   There are different ways to make this determination.  You can evaluate other sites, ask fellow teachers what they think is important to a good web page, and you could assess your student’s needs.  Another challenge will be to be able to save to the school’s server so the webpage is accessible via any Internet browser.  Successfully saving information and learning how to organize your folder on the web server can be accomplished in a variety of ways.  The last challenge is to create a classroom website that allows student to access information.  Since all students learn differently it will be very important to take into account their needs when designing the site and re-evaluate as necessary.  You will need the site to be user-friendly so that students aren’t frustrated trying to access the information.  So, your challenges include determining what good web design looks like, saving to the web server and creating a website.
V.	  Instructional Strategies & Implementation Plan (Parts 6 & 7)
A.	Introduction
1.	The following table summarizes the components of my learning system.  I will be implementing a training program to create a classroom webpage using Mozilla Composer.  I will use teaching facts and concepts as my instructional strategies. The facts presented during the beginning of the training sessions will focus on the basics they are going to need to know to work with the program.  Teaching concepts will be used to help with the actual layout of the website. Some teaching of troubleshooting will be necessary when working with websites.  There are many variables that need manipulated to produce the desired effect.  Basic troubleshooting techniques will be covered so they know where to start looking for the problem.  The learning system will start with learning facts, work with concepts or how everything is related, and will end with troubleshooting techniques.  This table summarizes the strategies while working with teaching concepts.  
2.	Training Program for Teachers to Learn to Develop a Web Page (initial steps)
Learning Element	Component	Strategies	Rationale	Materials/Activities	
1.
Select the Information to Attend To	Introduction	Attention	Learners need to heighten their attention, focus on the new knowledge being taught, and establish expectations of how to interpret the new knowledge they will encounter. (Foshay, Ch. 3, p. 42)	•	SMARTBoard presentation of sample classroom web pages.  These will range from the very simple to the very complex.
•	Small group discussion of what information on the web pages caught their attention the most and why it captured their attention.
•	Worksheet to list the top three items found on a classroom web page.
•	Classroom discussion of the completed worksheets – discuss similarities and differences of responses.	
	Situate		A scenario provides a common learning context for group participation and anchors learning in an authentic context (Reisner, p. 40)	•	Scenario presented through an authentic case description of a teacher in their school district who utilizes a classroom webpage.
•	Small group discussion of what a teacher needs to know and do to develop and implement a classroom web page to be used for instruction.	
	Present Learning System Purpose and Goals	WIIFM

YCDI	Learners need to recognize what they are learning is relevant and that they are capable of doing it. (Foshay, Ch. 3, p. 44-45) 	•	PowerPoint presentation on goals for the learning system and a timeline of events.
•	Reintroduce the components of the scenario the learners can relate to.  Have the learners discuss ways a classroom webpage can make their job easier and more productive.	
2.
Link the New Information with Existing Knowledge	Introduce Concepts of Web Design	Recall and Relate	Learners need to link existing knowledge to new information.  This happens through “recalling” relevant existing knowledge and “relating” it to what is about to be learned. (Foshay, Ch 2, p.26)	•	Put participants into groups of three.  Provide samples of classroom web pages.  Participants will review the Web Pages and discuss the relevance to their needs.
•	Share teacher stories of experiences having used a web page to gain knowledge about a concept or to get assignment information from.  Discuss the advantages of information being available beyond the school day.
	
3.  
Organize the Information	Organization	Structure of Content and Objectives	Learners need to organize the new information so that it fits into some pattern they already have in their minds for related knowledge. (Foshay, Ch 2, p. 26)	•	Participants will be provided a table to compare ways to disseminate classroom information.  The ways to disseminate the information will be determined by classroom discussion and the chart will contain “traditional” and “online” headings.  Participants will need to fill in the traditional and online ways of completing the dissemination of information.
•	Objectives will be on the Whiteboard for viewing during the class time.	
4.
Assimilate the New Knowledge into Existing Knowledge	Present Concept of Web Design	Present New Knowledge and Examples	Learners need a structure for the new information that differentiates elements that belong to the concept and those that do not belong. (Foshay, Ch. 2, 27).	•	Open a good example of a classroom web page and then overlay a PowerPoint presentation that walks through the key components of good web design.
•	Have participants work in small groups to evaluate two different Web Pages in reference to the mental model provided.
•	Provide groups with two different web pages and have them come up with a scale to rate the four pages.  
•	Have all groups discuss their scales and reasons why they rated each web page as they did.  All groups would be given the same four web pages. 	
5.
Strengthen the New Knowledge in Memory	Reinforcement	Practice, Feedback, Summary, Test, and On-the-Job Application	Learners need to strengthen the new knowledge by internalizing it so they can remember, recall, and apply it as needed. (Foshay, Ch 2, p. 27)	•	Have participants find on the Internet one good and one bad example of good web design and then share their pages with the class with their reasons why they rated them good or bad.
•	Using a good web design page, have participants explain why the page would be classified a good example.  
•	Use a rubric designed to determine if participants used the criteria of good web design in their evaluation of examples to provide feedback.
•	Have participants evaluate two web pages provided to allow them to apply their knowledge.  
•	Have participants begin to layout the design of their web page applying the concepts discussed. 	

B.	Overall Plan
1.	This is a training program for 7th grade – 8th grade teachers (core areas) to create a classroom webpage using Mozilla Composer.  Total of those participating will be fairly small, so the training schedule should progress smoothly.  Here’s the schedule of training elements:
Schedule	Component	Strategies	
Day 1	Introduction	Attention	
Day 1	Situate		
Day 1	Present Learning System Purpose and Goals	WIIFM

YCDI	
Day 2	Introduce Concepts of Web Design	Recall and Relate	
Day 2	Organization	Structure of Content and Objectives	
Day 3	Present Concept of Web Design	Present New Knowledge and Examples	
Day 4	Reinforcement	Practice, Feedback, Summary, Test, and On-the-Job Application	

2.	Although my schedule indicates four days of training, I will plan for a minimum of five days.  This would take into account any issues that might arise due to technological complications.  This would also allow an extra day for the project if discussions became in-depth.  Since I have more than one area where discussions are part of the activities, I would need to make sure I allowed ample time for discussions.  Also, the extra day could be used in case someone isn’t able to attend part of the training days.  This would allow them additional time to complete the training.  My position as tech director could pull me away from training on any given day if I encountered network problems that had to be addressed.  I don’t foresee any problems with the availability of resources because I have many classrooms I could use if something happened to the original room I had planned to use.  Space also would be an issue because of the small number of participants.  Overall, the four day schedule seems to be adequate to go through the concepts of web design.  I will follow up with an additional training day approximately one month after the initial training.
VI.	Formative Evaluation Results & Revision Plan (Parts 8 & 9)
A.	I decided to conduct a face-to-face interview with a written guide for my formative evaluation.  Listed below are the questions I used to guide the conversation.  I interviewed prospective participants for my training program. Both were 7th/8th grade teachers, but with varying degrees of technology literacy.  The results of the interviews are compiled in the table following the questions.
1.	Questions (All questions asked was followed with a “please explain their response”.):
a)	Are the goals appropriate?
b)	Do you think the questions on the needs assessment will provide the necessary answers to determine the needs of the participants? 
c)	Is this training program of value?
d)	Do the objectives meet the goals of the program?
e)	What items might become obstacles to this training program?
f)	Do you see any unintended consequences that could result from this training program?
g)	Does the timeline for training seem appropriate?

Area	Results	
	Teacher:  Dena Keeling, 7th/8th Grade Science	
Goals	Learning Goal # 1 – Determine what good web design looks like
She liked this goal and thought it was necessary to understand the importance of good web design.		
	Learning Goal # 2 – How to save to the web server
She didn’t think this step would be that important.  She felt like saving to the web server was the same as saving files to a computer, so she thought this step could be eliminated.	
	Learning Goal # 3 – Design a Web Page
She thought this was a very good goal.  She could see where she could benefit from a classroom web page.  She thought I needed to include another goal on appropriate content for a classroom web page.	
Needs Assessment	She liked the idea of conducting face-to-face interviews for the needs assessment.  She felt like some of the questions were testing her knowledge instead of the needs of the participants.	
Objectives / Assessment Plan	She thought the assessment tools were aligned to the objectives. 	
Instructional Strategies	Teaching Facts, Concepts, and Troubleshooting
She thought the instructional strategies were appropriate for the topic being taught.	
Implementation Plan	She thought the amount of time for the training program was appropriate.  She liked that I had allowed an extra day in case something happened.  She suggested a follow up day possibly a month after the initial training to answer questions that might arise after the participants went and tried to complete their web site.  The only obstacle she could see would be if the technology failed during the training program.	

Area	Results	
	Teacher:  Danny Smith, 7th/8th Grade Social Studies	
Goals	Learning Goal # 1 – Determine what good web design looks like
He liked this goal and thought it was necessary to understand good web design to be able to create one.		
	Learning Goal # 2 – How to save to the web server
He felt like this was a very important step.  He doesn’t feel comfortable saving to the web server and hasn’t had a lot of experience in naming files, so this was important to him.	
	Learning Goal # 3 – Design a Web Page
Although he thought the goal was fine for the assignment, it wasn’t something he would want to spend a lot of time on.  He would like to have a web page for his classroom, but didn’t think he would spend hours trying to keep it up-to-date.	
Needs Assessment	He liked to idea of interviewing face-to-face because that way the participant could ask for clarification of some questions.  In his opinion some to the questions were difficult to understand what was being asked.	
Objectives / Assessment Plan	He thought the items that would be used to assess the objectives were realistic.  He didn’t think teachers would want to write an essay.  He suggested a list be composed to compare/contrast classroom uses instead of writing an essay.	
Instructional Strategies	Teaching Facts, Concepts, and Troubleshooting
He thought the instructional strategies would be effective.	
Implementation Plan	He thought the training schedule seemed all right.  He felt like learning to save files to the server (for any situation) would be an unintended consequence of the training.  He couldn’t see any obstacles to learning.

B.	Summary of Feedback
1.	Both of the teachers felt like the training program would be good for those teachers wanting a web site.  One of the teachers wasn’t sure everyone would want one and keep one up to date.  They both agreed that the learning goals were appropriate, for the most part.  The teacher that was more technology literate didn’t feel like saving to a server should be a goal as she already knew how to do it, but she could see where it might be beneficial to others.  She also suggested adding a goal concerning website content.  Both teachers felt like some of the questions were more about their technological skills instead of determining their needs for the web page creation.  They liked the idea of using the survey and then following up with an interview.  Both thought this would provide insight into what skills they already possess and what they really want from a web page.  They agreed the objectives were appropriate and the assessment tools would assess the objectives.  Both agreed the instructional strategies were appropriate and the implementation plan was realistic.
C.	Possible Changes Based Upon Feedback/Additional Information
1.	One change I would make based upon feedback is to take out the essay writing assessment tool.  I feel like a compare/contrast list or table would be appropriate to assess the objective.  I would leave in the goal of saving to a web server because I have some teachers that would need that training and also it provides knowledge that was unintended (i.e. saving files).  Another change I would make would be to add the additional training day a month after the initial training to allow the opportunity for questions about items they never realized would be an issue until they actually created the page and used it for a while.  I wouldn’t add the content as a goal, because I felt like that was something the teachers already have in mind.  Most of the teachers that want a web page already know what they want on it.

Appendix

Prioritization Tool Results

Web Design Checklist

Good		Bad		
Text:		
1-2 typefaces per page		Paragraphs set in all caps, bold, or italic		
1-2 type sizes per page		Underline text		
Judicious use of emphasis		Overuse of bold text inside the text block		
Headings next to text		Links in the text block		
Links separate from body text		Use of graphic text for main content		
Graphics and Mulitmedia		
Graphics fit on the screen		Wrong format (could create large file size)		
Suitable file format used		Multimedia files load automatically		
Large multimedia files downloaded only on explicit request from user		Required plug-in dialog box appears when user requests multimedia materials		
Users are informed of required plug-in		Graphics are too wide for monitor		
Page Design		
Consistent alignment		Mixed alignments		
Page design fits on the screen		Blinking or moving page elements		
Important elements at top of page		Confusing pages with too much contrast		
Design used consistently throughout site		Inconsistent application of page design		
Sufficient contrast between background and text		Colored or complex backgrounds that reduce legibility		
Site Structure	
Sensible and consistent categorization		Mixed organizational structures		
2-3 clicks between home page and content		Multiple layers between home page and actual content		
Eight or fewer main level categories		Too shallow hierarchy; too many top-level categories		
Navigation	
Site identifier		Dead end pages without navigation options		
Page name		No page names		
Descriptive page titles		No indicators of where you are in the site		
Site guides (like Table of Contents or Search)		No Site guides		
Functionality	
All links lead to pages		Broken links		
User in always in control		Site causes browser to crash		
Pages load quickly		Pages take too long to load		
Pages work with all systems and browsers		Pages only work with specific systems and browsers		
Content	
Information is current and has been recently updated		Last updated date more than 6 months ago		
All pages include contact and last updated information		No contact: no email, mailing address, phone number		
Text is clean and free of typos and grammatical errors		Unedited text		

Final Project Grading Rubric

Criteria	Does not meet requirements.  Lack of effort or poor organization.	May not meet all requirements.  Shows a lack of good decisions or effort.	Meets the majority of the requirements appropriately.	Meets or exceeds the requirements!	
Design:	
Website is subdivided logically	0	1	2	3	
Uncluttered Space	0	1	2	3	
Appropriate Backgrounds and Colors	0	1	2	3	
Navigation is easy to understand	0	1	2	3	
Home page is linked from all other pages	0	1	2	3	
Multimedia loads quickly	0	1	2	3	
Images are appropriate	0	1	2	3	
Text is easy to read	0	1	2	3	
Links work properly	0	1	2	3	
Content:	
Pages have titles	0	1	2	3	
Links= 2 minimum	0	1	2	3	
Main page – plus two additional pages	0	1	2	3	
All pages are named appropriately using naming conventions	0	1	2	3	
No grammatical errors or typos	0	1	2	3	
Contact person information is provided	0	1	2	3	
TOTAL
(out of 45 points)