Welcome to the introductory professional development session on creating web pages!
Below is a list of instructions that hopefully provide useful when you are trying to create web pages
on your own or instructing students. Web pages in themselves are not difficult to create but they can be time consuming, especially as you learn a few ways to make them more functional and interesting to look at!
Hopefully what this session will accomplish is to give you enough background and confidence to begin creating your own pages and getting the students involved as well.
To that end then:
1. In order to keep your work organized begin by creating a new folder in your "At Ease" folder and naming it WEB PAGES. This way when when you need to access your work everything will be in one place.
2. We begin "composing" our web pages by opening up Netscape and going to "file" and choosing "blank page." This allows us to begin creating our web pages and hardly suprising this part of Netscape is called "Composer." Save this page to your web page folder and save it as "index.html" This is case sensitive and there are no spaces. This is important because when you eventually want your web page to be put on a server (like the one at each school) the server looks for "index.html" as the page that holds the information it needs).
Background:
3. So, to start simply let's change the color on what will be the background of your web page. Go to "format" from the top menus and choose "page properties." Click on "custom colors" and choose the background box. On the next window choose "crayon picker" and choose the color you would want. Select ok to exit both boxes.
Tables:
4. Since we will be naming the web page and putting graphics and text on the page it is useful in this program to place tables onto the page so that we can direct our information into it. Choose the waffle looking icon from the tool bar up top and the "table" menu will appear. Here we choose the size, color, and placement of the table. Clicking on "insert" places the table onto your page.
Images:
5. To copy an image from the internet first find an image that you wish to borrow. Click your mouse directly on top of the image and hold your mouse down until a box appears and choose "save this image as.." You may change the name that the computer has given the image so as to make it easier to remember but keep the extensions (.jpg or.gif) as this is how the computer recognizes that it is an image. This image should be saved in your web page folder for later retrieval.
Inserting Images:
6. This works along the same lines as inserting tables. Choose on your page where you want the image to be placed and click your cursor. Then using the "shape box" in the tool bar you will get a window asking you to choose your image. Click on "choose file" and direct it to the image you have sitting in your web page folder.
Links:
7. There are two kinds of links that you will want to be making. One is simply to link to another page and the other is to link to another web site. In both cases the procedure is the same: first you type on your screen or highlight what it is that you want to become an active link. Then choosing what looks like a chain link from the menu bar you will get a window reminding you what you have chosen as your active link and then asking you to choose what it is you want to "link to" Here you will either put in the web site address or the name of another page you have already created.
Now, in order to see your page for real we need to pop back into Netscape. Easily done! Simply choose the navigation tool from the menu bar (it looks like a ship's wheel) and the Netscape puts it on the internet and activates the links you have chosen. If you don't like what you see then you pull down the "file" menu from the top and choose "edit page" to continue creating your page.
Assessment:
You are looking for functionality, usability, design, and content.
So, this is the basics and the rest so to speak is "eye candy." The point of the web site you are creating is that it be efficient and useful both to you and your students. It should provide a way for you to organize and add information to it in a way that will utimately save you time and work as a reference for your students.
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