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The following YouTube video illustrates a wonderful use of animated text to illustrate a message. I’m posting it as an example for my multimedia students. Uh… the message is pretty important too.

Pay particular attention to the use of the symbols being used to illustrate the text. Also, note the flow. The text appears on screen at the comfortable rate of reading the passages. Nice. The creator was not mentioned. I’d love to know who it was. If anyone knows, please post a comment.

Linda Lyle, an instructional services specialist where I work, sent me a link to the following video by Wendy Drexler. It is a wonderful multimedia presentation illustrating the definition of a networked student. What I really like about it is the fact that it uses very simple “technology” to accomplish the sophisticated lesson. I believe that making effective use of technology is less about understanding how to use complicated features of presentation software, but rather communicating your idea clearly using the tools you have. Nice job Wendy.

Many of my students don’t see the need or pay much attention to naming conventions; especially in the beginning stages of learning web design. The subject of naming conventions is a big one and there are several articles that deal with it well. Brielfly, understand that how you name your file does matter for several reasons:

1. The files should have meaningful names so you can easily identify them
2. Other files may reference them and are looking for specific names
3. Javascript functions sometimes require filenames to have a specific pattern to work properly
4. Many Content Management systems, like Wordpress, require template files to be named in a specific way so the application can call them.
5. Some files like RSS feeds, require specific filenames so applications like iTunes can recognize them.

For all of these reasons and more, understanding the importance of filenaming conventions is important for web designers and producers of digital content.