Volume 3, No. 5
3 October, 2003
[To view this newsletter on line:
http://www.emck.net/eline/03_10_03.htm.]
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 We
want you! Send us your resources, ideas, links! We'll post
them here, and give you credit! (Sorry, no cash, just the
satisfied feeling that you've helped a fellow teacher!)
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 You
and Your Students' Face to the World - The Classroom Website!
Do
you have your own classroom website? Does your school? Does your
club/team/organization? Do you write newsletters? (The
Partnership Help Desk is created in
FrontPage, and is really a web page!) The World Wide Web delivers endless resources
and possibilities right to your browser and inbox, and you could be doing the
same for your students, parents, and other teachers! It's much easier than you
think! With this capability you can provide, for the students
in your classroom or lab, and parents who have access:
- Syllabi, class rules, permission slips,
- Assignments and due dates,
- Test dates,
- field trips, special events
- Student work, students grades,
- information resource links,
- ...and so much more!
For veterans of web page construction, we've included some
resources to help enhance and improve your work. But this edition of The
Partnership Help Desk is mostly aimed at the overwhelming majority of teachers
who have yet to take the plunge.
| Web
Construction |
| HTML |
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the language of
the World Wide Web. No matter what Web construction tool you use, HTML
is what it generates for you. For those who want full control over
their site, learning HTML is a must. Luckily, it isn't difficult. For those
teaching web design to students, HTML is a very good idea, and can be
a student's first introduction to writing computer code.
Web Construction from CyberBee
http://www.cyberbee.com/schoolpage/school.html
- Linda Joseph and the CyberBee staff bring us this very simple
tutorial, with links to resources, example classroom sites, and a
template. Great site for beginners!
http://www.dickinson.edu/~dempsey/learnhtml/.
Paul Dempsey of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, produced this
very good (if a bit text dense) tutorial.
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/.
Look under "Authoring" for "HTML Basics." The
nice thing about this otherwise dot-com-in-your-face site is that
they give specific instructions for specific tasks under their
"Teaching Tool" section. There's also tutorials on most
popular WYSIWYGs (see below), and a kids
intro to web design and HTML, which has links to hints on
using the site in instruction.
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| WYSIWIGs |
This odd bit of Internet acronym is pronounced
"wizzy-wig," and stands for "What You See Is What You
Get" - a web development tool which gives you an environment like
a word processor. WYSIWYGs include FrontPage, Netscape Composer,
DreamWeaver, and a host of inexpensive downloads and other tools.
Here's some general tutorials for some of the most popular.
http://www.freeskills.com/ -
A service of VisualSoft UK, Ltd., FreeSkills has free tutorials on all
the Office products including FrontPage, as well as DreamWeaver. The
site is a clearinghouse for their online courses (which are not free)
and job search support.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/.
Under the "Tutorials" section (look in "Instructional
Resources") are online tutorials for all of Microsoft's family of
products, including FrontPage. Word, Excel, and Access (all of which
produce web pages) are a part of University of Pittsburgh's Dr.
Bernard J. Poole's excellent collection
of tutorials.
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| Diagnostics |
No website development tool is foolproof. Here's a couple of
resources which will
help with quality control, including download speed, browser compatibility,
easy navigation, and special needs accommodation.
 http://validator.w3.org/
W3c is the Internet standards source, so their diagnostic tool is
pretty strict. One page at a time, only. They also have a Cascading
Style Sheet validator for those of you who've moved to that
standard.
 http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/
- This resource sells HTML analysis software, but they offer a complete
analysis of any single page directly through the website. The feedback
includes a list of things on your site that don't work in some popular
browsers.
 http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
- It sounds a little crude and over-the-top, but Vincent Flanders has
been a one-person website design watchdog for almost as long as the
WWW has been around. If you're interested in making sure your site
isn't complex and hard to use, slow-loading, or failing to display
properly, here's a place with examples and ideas...complete with
attitude!
 http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/
- This site, featured in the July
17, 2002 Partnership Help Desk, tests your site to see if its
accessible to Internet surfers with disabilities. You can test a page
at a time from the site.
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| Software
and Other Resources |
| WYSWIGs |
In keeping with The
Partnership Help Desk charter, we've
only included free tools here. Microsoft bundled one - FrontPage Express -
with its browsers (they dropped it with IE 5.5, but it's still
knocking around). But here's some more up-to-date ones with everything you
need to do great pages!  http://www.netscape.com/
Netscape Composer is the pioneer in free WSYWIGs, and the latest version,
included with the browser
(look for "Downloads of the day"), works
just fine! If you prefer, the open-source version,  Mozilla,
is also available (both: all platforms).
http://www.coffeecup.com/ The
shareware version lasts 45 days, and then you have to buy it ($49).
CoffeeCup is one of the most popular stand-alone editors on the
market, with DHTML, FTP, and live editing. (Windows only, though
they're working on a Mac version.)
Dwarf from Virtual Mechanics
http://www.virtualmechanics.com/products/dwarf/
A Dwarf is true freeware (unrestricted use) WYSIWIG. Good reviews,
includes some site management tools and an FTP client. The
company figures it's a foot in the door, since they market a range of
products. (Windows only.)
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| Pictures,
Graphics and Free Stuff |
Graphics make the site, though pictures that don't
compromise your students or violate copyright are hard to come by. To make
matters worse, sites that turn up in Internet search engines for free
graphics are usually riddled with ads, pop-ups, or inappropriate links.
Here are
some free sources that improve on all that.
http://www.bellsnwhistles.com/
- Probably one of the busiest and most unattractive websites out there
(I'd hate to see what Vincent Flanders would do
with it!), but it's chock-full of free stuff, including animated GIFs,
other graphics, and links to software tools.
Digital Saskatchewan - http://wblrd.sk.ca/~digital_sask/
- Featured in the July
17, 2002 Partnership Help Desk, this initiative is a joint venture
of the Canadian Department of Education and the Saskatchewan
Association of Computers in Education. It's an exchange service for
pictures and other graphics which are free for non-profit use.
http://photogallery.nrcs.usda.gov/
- High-quality, copyright-free photos from the US Department of
Agriculture. Searchable!
http://www.freefoto.com/
- Thousands of photographs which are free to use for non-profit
purposes. Searchable and browseable by category.
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