Post #3

Website Critique, Open Content, and New Skills

     www.facebook.com is an extremely popular website that has become an extremely important networking tool in the United States today.  Rule 1: Facebook makes very good use of general design principles.  The sleek design and bright blue color allow students to remember it very well.  Rule 2: Facebook orients users very well.  The tool bar at the top of the page is extremely well organized with icons that clearly show users what they need.  Rule 3: The text is carefully justified on Facebook's page.  Rule 4: Facebook doesn't follow this rule very well, they use much more than three type styles.  Rule 5: Facebook sticks to the colors blue and white on it's page.  This follows rule 5 very well and makes the webpage memorable and not overwhelming.  Rule 6: Facebook does follow this rule as it sticks to its color scheme of blue and white.  Rule 7: Facebook is certainly enhanced with graphics and interactivity.  It is extremely interactive, as you can post things onto a personal page or comment on other people's activity.  Rule 8: Facebook doesn't eliminate extra items, as often times spam appears and adds pop up on the screen.  Rule 9: Facebook does use upper and lower case.  Rule 10: Facebook does keep text lines short. Rule 11: Facebook does use single spacing. Rule 12: Facebook does have a very simple, easy to use structure.  Rule 13: Facebook does limit the focus of the website.  It has seperate pages for a person's personal page, and then another page to follow other people.  Rule 14: Facebook makes good use of bold and italics.  Rule 15: Facebook caters to its audience and often times has games available and different features for different age groups.  Rule 16: Facebook doesn't use flashing text. Rule 17: Facebook does use lists.  Rule 18: Facebook does navigate consistently.  Rule 19: Facebook doesn't stack text.  Rule 20: Facebook does include multiple graphic types.  It includes list as well as pictures.  Rule 21: The screen is extremely organized.  Rule 22: The sizes of everything on the screen is relative to it's importance.
     I think that open content is not important to educators.  I think it is cheating the author of the work if their words can be used without due credit.  I would not contribute to open content materials and I would not use them. 
     I learned so much from this week's assignment! I think it was very useful for use in the classroom and I plan to make good use of this new skill as a teacher.  I had never heard of mail merge before and I think that is an extremely beneficial and worth-wile skill to have.