September 08, 2006
Technology Short Course Program Hacks #1: Print Page Link References
Doodling a few ideas for Beyond Google, I was reminded today of a hack that may yet be officially adopted into the TSCP templated delivery system: referenced links on printable pages.
Although the aim of the game is to encourage students to read HTML delivered teaching materials l(ike these Vandalism in Cyberspace or these Robotics and the Meaning of Life tasters) online, many students are minded to print them out.
There are issues with this, aside from losing the character of any interactive exercises. In particular, web links described with meaningful link text lose the associated href/web address data, which means the reader does not really know where the resource has come from, and cannot easily make a note to visit it at a later date.
So in the spirit of hacking the courses in advance of new features being integrated into them, here's a course hack: a Greasemonkey link referencer script that will automatically reference links and provide a numbered reference list to them at the end of the print page.
Observant readers will recognise the script is just a rehash of an earlier tool (a link referencing bookmarklet), but hey, reuse is good, right?
To see the script in action, install it and visit this example print page from T183 Design for the Web, which also be reached by clicking on the print button from this sample page of the course materials:
and here's an example of the link referencing:
compared to the original:
Hmm - okay - bad example... the link text used in these links is actually the web address. But it's too late now for me to grab some more screenshots, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that the link referencing script does actually pull the web address out of the href attribute of the link, rather than the link text.
I need to address the styling, and maybe add a References heading, but it's a hack that, at least in my limited testing, appears to do what it's supposed to.
If you're studying any of the Technology Short Course Programme courses, the Greasemonkey script should add link references to every print page.
Now I wonder how else I can start hacking the course pages...
...and I wonder how much fun there is to be had when Moodle ships...:-)
All suggestions appreciated ;-)
Posted by ajh59 at September 8, 2006 01:17 AM