Fire Drill
Schedule

• Fire Chief's Comments
• Firehouse Tasks
• Hot Topics This Week : Multimedia II
• Drills
  • 1-Alarm Drill: Multimedia Terms
  • 3-Alarm Drill: Graphics
  • 4-Alarm Drill: Authoring
• Chief's Inspection List
• Fire Marshal Badge Skills
• Future Drills

Welcome to your eleventh week of firefighting at Firehouse 6287. 

You have done a great job and you now have under your belt one web page (your network drawing) and one web site (your PowerPoint lecture) ftped successfully to the server. Give yourselves pats on the back. As you begin creating a web site you should be more than ready to jump in to the task.

I have received many reflection papers and will be reading and responding to those this week. Each of you should receive a grade for your powerpoint and reflection paper sometime during this week.

This is our second (sort of third) week for the hot topic of multimedia.  There is really nothing new this week but just to make sure you do not overlook anything I have provided you with the description of the drills due this week that were presented last week.  

After we complete this topic, we will begin focusing on building your web site for the final project in this course. In the housekeeping tasks below I have suggested that you download Netscape Composer if you do not already have it.  Composer is a tool that comes packaged with Netscape Navigator. This will be the software tool we will use to build our web site.  You may use another if you have it and know how to use it, but the instructions I give will be for Netscape Composer - it is free (the right price). Some of the skills you will be learning in these next weeks will be useful when you begin building your web site so be sure to complete each one (even if you do not have to turn anything in). 

Finally, it is time you start thinking about your portfolio web site and maybe start sketching things out on paper (called storyboarding) so you begin to develop an idea prior to beginning the actual building of your web site.  Your web site will be the beginning of your online portfolio. An electronic portfolio can serve many purposes. In our case it will serve the purpose of developing your web development skills as well as provide a venue for you to showcase the knowledge and skills you have learned in this course. My hope certainly is that you will continue to use this throughout your program as a way to house, organize, present, and reflect upon your learning across your degree program.  The key here is that you will be building a web site (meaning multiple web pages linked together through appropriate navigation) and not just a web page (a single web page).  Therefore, as you brainstorm and storyboard, you need to consider how you will chunk the information and how you will provide navigation for your portfolio web site.

Some portfolio websites you might want to view are listed here:

• http://cito.byuh.edu/merrill/index.htm
• http://tiger.towson.edu/~avan1/portfolio/index.htm
• http://users2.ev1.net/%7Ejonbaker/
• http://people.uis.edu/msmit1/hreportfolio/index.htm
• Some interesting guidelines for portfolio development that might be useful. Still others can be found here.

My goals for you this week are to:

• define multimedia
• distinguish between hypertext, hypermedia, and multimedia
• compare and contrast popular multimedia development software tools and try one out
• use a graphics program

Task #1:
Download version 7.2 of Netscape if you do not have it so that you will be ready to begin building your web site next week. If you have an earlier version of Netscape then you can continue to use it as long as it is a version that has Netscape Composer with it.  Composer is the web page building tool that comes with Navigator which is the web browser. (Notes: During the installation of version 7.2, you will be prompted for the "type of setup you prefer". At the prompt, select either "recommended" or "full". You will also be prompted to install additional components [Desktop Weather and Sun Java]. You do not need to install these components to use Composer. To remove the components from the setup, remove the corresponding checkmark.)

NOTE: If you want to use another tool for creating your web page then you may do so - however please do not expect us to be able to troubleshoot for every program that is out there.  In addition, the UWF student web server does not support Front Page extensions which means that if you use Front Page some of the things you create may not work or show up once you ftp it to the server.

• Check the FAQ Page to see if your question has already been answered.
• Email Chief Curda.
• Email EMT Kelly.
• Email the firehouse crew and see if another firefighter knows the answer.

Now let's see what the hot topic is this week!