About this Page

Erick Howenstine

This page was written primarily with Dreamweaver and with a variety of scripts which I found from free sources on line. Cascading Style sheets make formatting changes for the entire site pretty easy. I'd like to get into more interactivity, with php and sql databases and so on, but haven't yet. I don't use Blackboard, the university's course software, though I've tinkered with it a bit.

My first multimedia adventure was with Podium, in 1995. I created more than a thousand files, all linked to course outlines, and students liked it pretty well. But it wasn't on line, and eventually the university stopped supporting it, then stopped purchasing it. Since then I find html and other simple web developer's tools do just about everything I need.

The University has since gone into Blackboard, a course authoring system, for general course delivery, and it's probably a pretty good idea. It's quite functional for many things, but also a bit limiting. My feeling is that their is room still for innovation in instructional technology.