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Conquer the Web with Beads&String
7/30/2001
The Harvey Project is also creating tools to simplify the task of building online courses. The Beads&String tool allows instructors who are relatively inexperienced with technology to build Web-based presentations in a slide-show-like format. Beads&String allows a teacher to arrange Web pages in a particular sequence to create a presentation, lecture, or module of an online class.
Think of the separate Web pages of an online presentation as the beads. The tool creates a sequence, or string, that holds them together. It isn't necessary to know HTML coding to use the tool. According to Stephenson, the end result looks something like a PowerPoint presentation but with Web pages as slides.
"Since Beads&String runs in a standard Web browser, it can accommodate any sort of rich content that can be put on the Web," he says. "The tool is easy for instructors to use, but it also helps students because it creates a linear sequence for following a lecture or presentation from end to end. It's less confusing than a set of links on a page, and much more flexible."
Beads&String may be used free of charge by anyone. Stephenson and his collaborators are currently working on a "content browser" that will will make the experience of assembling Web-based lectures and presentations still easier.
Stephenson practices what he preaches. Lectures in his online course, www.science.wayne.edu/~bio340, are based entirely on Beads&String and incorporate rich content developed by the Harvey Project as well as many Web sites from the project's database.
Student reaction to the Beads&String format has been positive, and they particularly appreciate the interactive nature of the material.
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