Assignments

Create homepage and course page
During the first week of class, you will create a homepage on the George Mason server and a link to a separate course page for your 209 assignments. If you already have a homepage, you create a page for your 209 assignments and link to it.
(20%)

Web page critique
This assignment's purpose is to heighten your awareness of good and bad web sites. It is also designed to help you begin saving your preliminary web research. Since you already have an idea of what your final Web project topic will be (this will vary depending on section), search the web for three good sites and three bad sites related to your topic. When you've chosen your sites, write a short paragraph for each one. Include an account of why you chose it as a good or bad example, including whether your choice was based on design, content, or both. Make sure you refer to the evaluative criteria discussed in class.
(15%)

Image Capture
Find three electronic images related to your final project topic. Place the images into a new html page, and record the following information:

• The URL where you found the image (required)
• The original image's source, if not originally digital (if possible)
• The photographer or illustrator (if possible)
• The year the original photo or illustration was taken (if p0ssible)
• Explain how this relates to your topic (required)

(15%)

Hypertext Annotation
Construct a short hypertext (3 screens, with about 10 links) based on some piece of writing from another course. You can paste the original text directly into Composer®, but you'll need to convert it to plain text first (using, for example, "Save As" plain text in Word® to create a .txt file). Don't use the convert to HTML function in Word®—it makes unwieldy html.

Once the file is in html format, consider how the structure of the writing could change. You want to avoid too much scrolling, for example, so you might break the text into several chunks. These "chunks" can be linked together in several ways, including, but not limited to the original organization. You can also link to external sites. You might choose to create a page of definitions, linked to the main text.
(15%)

The 209 final project should be an original hypertext which uses the technology (linking, multiple paths, images, targets etc) in ways which enhance your ideas. The project should be a text which relies upon (not merely uses) digital media. If I can print out your final project and not lose anything important, you're not using the technology in an important way.

The specifics of this assignment will vary by section, but in general you should consider the differences between print texts and digital or electronic texts. Do you read them differently? Do you write them differently? Consider the differences between works composed for print and those composed for the computer screen. What about works written for print but converted to digital texts?

The final project should contain at least 10 links (including targets), three images, and 3-5 screens of text. The text should be at least 750 words.
(25%)

Participation and Demonstration
Part of your grade will depend upon class participation, including showing the draft of your assignments to the class, giving and responding to constructive criticism and suggestions, and of course participating in class discusions.
(10%)