In this activity we will make a simple encyclopedic page.
You should have at this point completed the task where you Make an Index Page.
Now here's the hard part. To truly get how this works, you'll need to write a page that isn't just "Hello, World!".
So let's make a short page about a term related to educational technology. You can come up with your own, topic or you can choose from our A-Z List of Ideas.
Once you have your term -- say, the Semaphore Telegraph -- do a little research. Figure you want to write a paragraph or two. You just have to find out what the system did, in what years, and who ran it.
Click into a new paragraph on your index page. Add your term in brackets like so:
Alt-S (or Command-S) to save (or click outside the box). Then click your newly created link.
It will open up a "ghost page" and prompt you to create the page. Click the button to create it.
Now research your topic. If there's a lot of information on it, reduce it to a few sentences. If there's not much, write what you have -- others will extend it.
Keep in mind this is not Wikipedia. You don't have to write *the* article on the Semaphore Telegraph. We're talking about teaching machines in this course, so make the paragraph fit the purpose:
A system in use in Monitorial Schools of the 18th and 19th centuries whereby one teacher could coordinate the actions of more than a hundred students. A typical model might have six squares that through a system of pulleys and levers could be turned to give instruction to the class. Seeing commands, the students would respond instantaneously. The command "S.S." for example, displayed high above the students would prompt the students to show their slates to the teacher, who could scan them to see if students were exucting tasks correctly. The command "F." would signal the students to all face forward.
And let's stop there, that's enough. We could go on, of course, and draw a parallel to Learning Mangement Systems or link out the "Monitorial Schools" term and write up an additional page, but for the moment we just wanted to get this first page started.