Publishing Student
Work on the Internet - Using Web Page Design Programs such as Microsoft
Front Page Editor, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Netscape Communicator
(Part Two)
Peggy Maslow
Creating a web page is one of the most motivating and exciting
ways to publish students' work on the Internet. Students learn how
to use images and other design elements. To enable students to publish
their writing on a web page, within 2 class periods, I designed
templates. This way the students download the templates to their
computers and plug in the images, colors, links, and text they want.
I provided the page outline, but they can change that if they are
more advanced in web design.
One of the first requirements is to have a web design program installed
on your computers. Using a web page design program is probably one
of the hardest things to learn when using a computer. But using
a template makes it much easier. Out of the three popular software
programs, the easiest to use is Netscape Composer, which is the
least effective. However, it can be downloaded free onto the computers.
Macromedia Dreamweaver can be bought for a very reasonable price,
under $100 for each computer for educators and for schools. Microsoft
Front Page is also viable.
I have taught myself Dreamweaver using the online help and tutorials.
I learned Netscape composer in one workshop and Microsoft Front
Page Editor in a two-week summer technology course for teachers.
The directions for using templates and the templates themselves
can be found at the web site
http://teachersnetwork.org/teachnet-lab/fklane/pmaslow/simple/ttemplate.html.
Also at this site is a template for a class page so that a teacher
can place all the links for each student's web page.
Another requirement is to purchase space on a remote server (a
computer which will store your information and make it accessible)
where you can save your students' work so it can be viewed on the
Internet. The technical experts in the school district usually know
if the schools have space on a remote server.
There are different systems for saving student work on the hard
drive. Students in my school didn't have separate accounts on the
local server but all saved to folders they created on the hard drive.
This was not an especially good system since students could mess
with each others' work if they felt like doing something malicious.
Fortunately, this rarely happened.
Next, you must consider saving the work so it can be viewed easily
online, and can be easy for you to post online. By going to my index
page-
http://teachersnetwork.org/teachnet-lab/fklane/pmaslow
and clicking on student work, you can see saved students' files.
On the school computers' hard drives I created a system of folders.
I put everything on one topic name in one folder, each with a name
less than eight letters. Then in that folder I saved student work
divided into their classes which were the code names used by the
computer on their program cards (for example, E701). In each class
folder I created a folder using students' last names. If there were
two students with the same last name I switched to their first names.
All the students had to do was to save their web page to their folder.
They could name their web page what they wanted as long as it was
less than eight letters and used the extension ".htm." Students
were also instructed to create an images folder in their last name
folder and save all images in this folder before inserting them
into their web page. Preparing this system ahead of time makes it
very easy for the teacher to upload all the files to the remote
server.
If you are feeling lost, it's because this is probably the most
complex activity in which you can involve your classes. Creating
web pages is not fast and sometimes not convenient, because you
need a remote server. But it is well worth it. Once you link all
their web pages on one class page, give the class time to assess
each others work and to learn from each other. In a future column,
I will discuss "How to Create Assessment Rubrics." It is extremely
important that students know ahead of time how their web pages will
be graded.
One other note of caution: students can save images by scanning
or a digital camera as well as from the Internet but be careful
that the number of megabytes of each image are low enough so that
it take less than 7 seconds to open on a computer. One of my next
columns will cover this more in detail. |