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WWW and HTML

By Martin Barge -
In this session we briefly looked at the historical evolution of the World Wide Web and HTML. Here is a copy of the presentation. Here is a summary of basic HTML tags used to create a simple webpage. 1. Basic structure of an HTML Document The following tags form the overall structure of an HTML document. <html></html> to start and end an HTML document. <head></head> to define meta-data about the document. <title> My webpage title </title> to define the title shown in the browser title bar. <body> My website content </body> for the visible content of your page. Get further practice here 2. Text formatting The following tags are used to format text. i) <p> some text </p> : to create and end paragraphs. ii) <em> some text </em> : to create italic text . iii) <strong> some text </strong> : to create bold text . iv) <br ⁄> to create line breaks. For example, here is a
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An Introduction to Computers and Languages 2012.

By Martin Barge -
Well, it's almost the end of 2011, so now is the time to lay down some new foundations for SML209, Computers and Languages, 2012.  Some of you may be wondering what this course is all about, so I thought I should provide a short overview and some pointers to things you can explore in preparation for the course - assuming you manage to grab a few moments of time over Christmas and New Year! First of all, let me try to define what this course is all about. In a nutshell, the course explores some of the areas in which computing overlaps with (or meets) language, language learning and literature. It's important at this stage to clarify what I mean by 'computing' - a brief investigation into the meaning of this word defines it as, "to determine by calculation; to reckon; to count" (Webster, 1913), and is derived from the Latin 'computare' meaning 'to count'. However, more modern usage of the word 'compute' includes the meaning of "t
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Screen Capture for Authoring Language Materials

By Martin Barge -
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Here's an example of a video made using simple tools. Tools Here are some tools that can be used to create video-based learning materials: Free clipart (e.g from  www.openclipart.org ). Smart Technologies Notebook: Download Notebook software here . Screencast-O-Matic screen capture software ( http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ ). Procedures This is one procedure for creating a simple instructional video: Decide on a theme or topic for your video (e.g. vocabulary items, labelling objects, describing scenes); Collect the images you need for this (e.g. a picture of a room; pictures of animals etc.). Create your Notebook sequence of items. Plan and rehearse the narrative of your presentation (make notes on paper to help you remember your narrative). Go to Screencast-O-Matic.com and size the video capture frame to fit your presentation window. Test your microphone. When you're ready, start your recording. When you're finished, play your recording back - redo
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20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

By Martin Barge -
20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web
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JavaScript Pop-Ups

By Martin Barge -
Hi! In this post I want to show you two methods for opening pop-up windows using the wonderful and powerful scripting language called JavaScript. Example 1 Here is the simplest form of pop-up window . Click the link below to see the window in action. Open a new window Example 2 This is a slightly more sophisticated pop-up. Firstly, it opens in the centre of the screen. Secondly, it re-focuses (pops-up) even when the window is minimised. Try it and see! Open a centred popup window Acknowledgement: The JavaScript itself has been taken from: javascript-array.com . So, perhaps I can now write a piece of text and add some vocabulary glosses. So, a glossary can be very useful in a text.
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Javascript in Blogger Posts

By Martin Barge -
I've often wondered whether it was possible to insert JavaScript code into Blogger posts. So I decided to have a little search on the Web, where I found a very informative blog: here . I've copied the recommended code and find that it does indeed work. To see a little bit of JavaScript in action: Click me to see Wow! That's quite cool. This opens up quite a few possibilities to add some extra interactive functionality to your blogs!!
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Using Blogger to learn Web Programming

By Martin Barge -
I've been exploring some of the features of the Blogger environment. In particular I've been looking through the Design section, and have found that Blogger allows you considerable freedom to modify the underlying HTML and CSS code. This means that you can create a highly customised page and site design. But what I particularly like about this feature of Blogger is that it provides very useful guidelines on how to modify the code. Read more here This, I believe, is a great way to play around with some HTML and CSS.
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