In-Service workshop for teachers at Lewis Mills HS
Thu Aug 26, 1999
Instructor - Tony Mitchell
Presentation overview:
Most new word processing programs will save a file "as html", meaning that they will convert it to html coding. This is convienient to begin to put school material on the web, but be careful. I have found that the word processors may change the material greatly, and usually requires some tweaking of the tags to get it to look right.
Some word processing programs will open an html document easily, but others will show all the coding as part of the text. For example, I used ClarisWorks on a Mac to save a document as html, and it worked fine, but then when I tried to open that same file to add to it, all the tags appeared as text. I had to start the browser, open the file, save it as text, then start ClarisWorks and convert the text file, then save as html when I was done. This method did not allow the graphics and links to work, I used it only to get text coded in html.
Many editing and web page creation programs insert tags into the code that do not show up when the file is viewed in a browser, but serve to identify the program used to create it. Look at the source code of this document for an example. Also, some word processors and web page creation tools use codes that are not universal, and can only be interpreted by later versions of certain browsers.
A widely used web site creation and management program is Microsoft's FrontPage. Use FrontPage Editor to make individual web pages. The main program can take over and manipulate an entire web site, which may be just what you need later, but can be very confusing when just starting.
Click here to read more about FrontPage.
You can get your space on the web with a personal home page through site host companies like Yahoo! Geocities, from your ISP, and from other sites. The advantage to having your own personal site is that you control what is there and you can work on it when and where you choose. A disadvantage is that when many people are maintaining many pages on many sites, there is no consistent control over the quality of these sites, and when changes need to be made to a of pages, no one person can make all the changes.
Yahoo! Geocities offers free personal web sites categorized by subject area. The free sites offer a relatively small amount of space and visitors to your pages get an advertisement that pops up in a separate browser window or right on your pages. For $5 per month you get much more space and no ads.
To send files to a Yahoo! Geocities site, you enter your member name and password on a form, then you can upload files, copy, delete, move them using most web browsers. You can also edit your files online using their web page editing tools or with straight typing of the text coding.
Click here to see the form to apply for a Yahoo! Geocities web site.
Click here to see a sample file management page from Yahoo! Geocities.
If the school system sets up it own internet server, the procedures and control required will probably make it less flexible for individuals to send and edit their web pages, but should make the overall setup more reliable and consistent.
A page with no links leading to it is called an orphan page. The only way for someone to find an orphan page is to type in the address if they know it. Getting other people to put links to your site may be as simple as sending a webmaster an email asking them to create a link to your page.
There are many web sites that list web pages for specific topics, and these web sites usually request links to be put on their pages. Click here for a partial list of web sites with links to the Mills EESci site.
Most www users have a preferred search site to use for more general searches such as Yahoo! or Excite. Many ISPs have search systems on their home pages. These general search sites usually ask you to fill out a form to get your page listed.
At the AltaVista search site, you just paste in the url of any page. Their system then reads the page within a few days and enters it in their search system. It also follows all the links on that page and does the same for those pages. This means that if all your pages are linked to a home page, just enter the url for that page and it does the rest. Then tell anyone who wants to find your page what to search for on AltaVista.