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DAY 1
Build Your Own Web Page

I.   Introduction (Lecture)

  1. History of Net
    A. Internet began as a military communications operation

    B. ARPANET grew to become the World Wide Web, including businesses and civilians

    C.  Explore more at Internet Society's pages http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/

  2. Terms -- see attached page

  3. Software & Programs (Browsers, Editors --- PLEASE NOTE: products listed are not endorsements, but merely examples of industry standards and options)
    A.  Browsers let you "browse" or look at web pages
    *Internet Explorer (usually comes with Windows OS software) www.microsoft.com
    *Netscape Navigator (download from net) www.netscape.com
    *AOL  (download from net with their service) www.aol.com

    B.  Editors let you edit, create, or change web pages
    FREE -- *Netscape Composer www.netscape.com
    *Microsoft FrontPage Express (comes with IE 4.0 and above)
    or Download from University of Cape Town http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/its/webdesign/download/fpxpress.exe
    *AOL Press www.aolpress.com

    RETAIL --*Microsoft FrontPage www.microsoft.com
    *Macromedia Dreamweaver http://macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/

  4. Downloading software & unzipping files

  5. Issues (Ethical, legal, privacy, copyright, freedom of speech, etiquette)
    Rules for internet copyrights are simple (and a little vague).  Basically if a page or file has author's name and date on it, it is considered copyrighted material.
    Some good articles on ethics, etiquette, and other issues at the World-Wide Web Virtual Library http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVLPages/QltyPages/QltyEtiq.html

  6. Search tips
    Keyword choice
    Spelling matters (sometimes MISspelling helps!)
    Capitals may or may not matter (depending on search engine used)
    Spacing mattters
    Worlds of Searching (it's really geared for kids) has some search tips & tutorials http://www.worldsofsearching.org/
    When you know how search engines work when you are searching, you can make them work for you when you post your page to the web.

II.   Planning your site (Lecture)

  • Purpose -- is your site to be entertaining? informative? personal scrapbook?

  • Audience -- who do you want to target to visit your site? How can you adjust vocabulary and navigation for this audience?

  • Content -- Give 'em a reason to come back, and be sure to give credit where credit is due!

  • Layout -- single page or multi-page site format?

  • Directories -- "folders" If you are going to create a whole site, these will help you organize

  • Navigation -- buttons? bars? image map? text links? go back to main page?

  • Themes -- Themes can help tie the pages of your site together.
    Example: MFES Campus website's puzzle pieces for navigation http://weber.marblefalls.txed.net/mfes

  • Domains & Hosts -- If you are planning on getting your own domain name you will have to register it.  This costs around $35 per year through most domain registration services.
    There is web space available through many of the local Internet Service Providers (TStar, 281, Momentum, etc).  The address and uploading procedures should be available from the company's technical support staff.
    There are also TONS of free domain hosts and servers out on the web.  Amount of space and domain name choice vary from service to service.  Investigate a little to find the features that are most appropriate for your needs. Some of the most popular are:
    Yahoo Geocities http://www.geocities.com 15 mbs of space, corner square ad on top right of page
    Domain will be geocities.com/you
    Lycos Tripod http://www.tripod.com 50 mbs of space, choice of pop-up or banner ad
    Domain will be  you.tripod.com
    Homestead http://www.homestead.com 8 mbs of space,  I haven't used this in a while -- they are beginning to charge for the good stuff and limiting PREVIEW (free) users to 3 pages only, plus they now have a bar of advertising on each page
    Domain will be you.homestead.com
    In my past experiences, I have found that uploading to Homestead is EXCRUCITATINGLY slow.
    Freeservers http://www.freeservers.com 20 mbs of space, banner ad across top of page
    Domain will be a choice of you.8m.com (4t.com, 8m.net, etc)
    You have to agree with them sending you free offers/newsletters to use the space, but the domain names are shorter!
    Lycos Angelfire http://www.angelfire.com 50 mbs of space, choice of banner or pop-up ads
    Domain will be angelfire.com/tx/you

III.   Break

IV.   Your Plan (Guided Activity)

V.   HTML vs. WYSIWYG "Alphabet Soup?" (Lecture & Guided Activity)

  • HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) -- You can use plain text editors like Notepad or WordPad to edit the "code" of a document
    It is important to remember to put an "end" tag for each tag. </****>
    Some common tags are
    <HTML> and </HTML> Begin and end your document
    <HEAD> and </HEAD> Contains title, author name, and keywords that help search engines identify content categories for your site
    <TITLE> and </TITLE> The tag for what will appear on the browser's title bar
    <BODY> and </BODY> Begin and end the main part of your document

  • WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) -- We'll be using FrontPage.  It runs a lot like a word processor so you don't have to deal with knowing much about HTML to create a page!

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MFISD Continuing Education Course

Instructor: Shelli Spruiell
sspruiell@marblefalls.txed.net