Literacy and the Web

I thought Mondays session dealing with literacy and the web was particularly helpful for writing and reading websites. Research on the F-shaped pattern was particularly interesting. This had implications for the writing of blogs and what would be read by readers of my blogs. I knew that overly detailed information when writing on websites should be avoided but the word limit of 17 words I was unaware of. (That last sentence had 24 words!) I was also aware that the use of jargon, abbreviations and acronyms should be avoided as this is also required in academic writing.

What was particularly surprising was the use of the Sans Serif Fonts (I just changed the font of this blog) but I could see the reason for this because the Sans Serif Fonts really make for easier reading on the computer. In academic writing we were always told that Times Roman was the recommended font.

Web design guidelines were also informative; especially the use of repetition of elements and colour. For example, when writing headers, all headers should be in the same colour and the same font. Sometimes in our efforts to present data attractively we stray from doing this. I was also unaware that the centre alignment of texts creates confusion.

The Safety and Privacy issues is something we take for granted but I see the importance of teaching the rules of digital Citizenship to students. I see this as of utmost importance, especially to young students.

Finally the exercise dealing with the validity and reliability of online articles and the manner in which it was done was particularly helpful. A helpful session indeed.