Welcome to the Web Site Building Project
The purpose of this project is to teach you step-by-step how to
build your own web pages.
This started as a project for the Academy Edison Elementary school in
Colorado Springs, Colorado.
For that reason, it primarily addresses the use of Netscape
Composer on an iMAC computer.
However, it can generally apply to the web building needs of any
school or individual.
It also applies to other computers, since the Netscape browser is
quite similar on PCs.
There are things contained in this project that most adults,
even those with some web experience, have probably never done before.
If you are with Academy Edison, then your pages will be posted on
Edisons secure, private intranet.
If you are accessing these pages for other purposes,
then it will be up to you to get your pages posted onto your school
or company intranet or onto an Internet Service Provider (ISP) web
site.
I hope that you lots of fun with this project and learn alot. Let's get started!
This project is composed of several main phases.
These will provide instructions that walk you through the
construction of your web site.
Some of these instructions are intended specifically for a teacher
and/or parent.
The main web building phases are:
1. Read this introductory page and the overview instructions.The project provides you with two template pages that will be the starting point of your site. Since this project started out as one for young students, the templates are geared toward them. However, they can be tailored to be whatever you want. The template pages pose some questions for the students to answer. They are structured so that the kids will get a chance to tell other kids about themselves, and in the process hopefully all get to know and appreciate each other a little better. The instructions will build upon the web pages a little more at each step and before you know it, you will have some cool web pages of your very own. You can personalize them with links, words, colors, images, and sounds. The pages can end up looking as tame or wacko as you want them to - it depends on the time and creativity you put into them. And then, there are the special effects !
The instructions that start on the next page explain what you will be building. There are also examples for each of the steps that show you what each step adds to the pages. Also, after these steps, some very cool special effects are provided. You can also add one or more of those to your pages, so check out those examples as well.
2. Edit the page templates provided.
For this you will use the detailed instructions at each step. You don't need to complete all the steps to have web pages worthy of posting so don't feel obligated to do them all. Complete as many of these as you or your teacher wants you to. This mostly depends upon how much time you have - not to mention how much fun you are having! Then, for the more eager web builder, detailed instructions are provided for you to implement any of the special effects. The effects require a bit more work, but are worth it.
3. Post your web pages.
If you are with Academy Edison, notify your teacher that they are ready to be posted on the intranet. Then your pages will be accessible from a link off your classroom web page. Once your web pages are posted, it is called a "web site". Let your schoolmates know when your site is up! If you are not a student at Academy Edison, you will have to rely upon an ISP or your own school. If you need recommendations about an ISP or anything related, then drop me some email.
Don't worry if you don't know what to do because example web pages are provided with the instructions to give you some ideas and direction. And if you see something that you like in an example, there is nothing wrong with using that in your own pages - as long as you don't copy everything. That is part of what the web is supposed to be all about sharing useful information and ideas with others.
Go to the web building instructions !!