Web Site Creation

Bloomfield Hills Middle School

4-23-01

Mr. John W. Brooks

 

            There are a variety of ways to create web sites, and as time moves along there will be even more ways. This activity is designed to give you an opportunity to create your own web sites, which will easily allow you to post grades on the Internet, list lessons plans, and links to relevant sites.  Web sites can include animations, graphics, and music or sounds. We will show you how to use grade machine to add grades to your web sites, as well as provide you with a couple of ways to easily make web pages.

 

 

TERMS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW:

 

URL: Universal Resource Indicator- It’s that www thing

Hyperlink- Using text or a picture to establish a mouse click connection to another page or site.

Upload- To send files to another computer, in our case, a server hooked up to the internet.

Download- To obtain files from another computer, usually a server on the Internet.

HTML (Hypertext markup language)- This is the universal language of the Internet. It can be read by various computer platforms (Mac, Windows, Unix) . Although most professional web page designers program their web pages, there are many alternatives to using HTML. We will be working with these today.

HTM- Any computer file needs to have a file extension. The file extension tells the computer what type of file (kind of like is it a fruit or vegetable) a file is. Any file that has an htm extension is a file that can go on the web. MY Home Page.HTM might be an example. Microsoft Office allows you to change any document to HTM files.  Just remember that all of your formatting may not change over well from Microsoft Word to HTM format. So try to limit the amount of special formatting that you use if you plan on changing from DOC files to HTM files.

JAVA-  another programming language which is cross platform. This language is commonly used to create special mini-programs that can be placed into you web page. You have seen these as little games or as hit counters, or as special animations.

 

HOW TO GET STARTED:

In order to get on the world wide web, you need someone to host your site. In the next few years, this will probably be done by the school district. However the school system is not presently set up to make this happen. For now, the best way to create a web site is through a variety of free hosting sites, all of which will do a credible job in helping you make an exciting web site.  The first one that I like to visit is called Tripod. The URL for this site is as follows:

 

                                    http://www.tripod.com

Once you enter the tripod site, you must then follow the directions for setting up an account. The web site does a pretty good job of guiding you through.  Click on the words “Sign Up for 50 mb of free space.  You must then fill out a lengthy form that gets you access to making web pages.

 

            Once you have followed the screens for registering with Tripod, you can then start to build your web site. Tripod has excellent tools for creating a web and you can also import any files from word processors or grade machine, as long as you can change them into htm format. You will need to establish a layout, and then you can used a pre-designed format (education probably will work) but you can add or delete pages at anytime, so you are not stuck with any one design feature.

 

USING GRADE MACHINE AND TRIPOD

 

You must first convert your grade machine files into HTM format. Grade machine has a feature called “export”, which allows you to take any class file and convert it into web based format.  Under file click on export and the html class. This will create an html file.

A. Saving a word-processed or grade machine document as a web page. 1.        Create a word-processed document (if you already have a document, proceed to step 3). 2.        Choose File--Save As and then enter your "File name" (names the document). For example: resume.doc. 3.        Select Web Page from the "Save as type" dropdown list, then click Save (saves the document as a web page). For example: resume.htm. B. Adding the web page's HTML to a Build Your Own Web Gem. 1.        Open Site Builder and click your web site on the All My Sites screen. 2.        Go to the web page where you want to add the saved web page document. 3.        Click the Add Web Gem icon on the tool bar. 4.        In the Web Gem Gallery, click the add link next to the Build Your Own Web Gem. The Build Your Own Web Gem dialog box displays. 5.        Minimize (shrink) this page. 6.        Open the web page generated in Section A. 7.        Choose View--Source (Internet Explorer) or choose View--Page Source (Netscape Navigator). The HTML displays, copy it and then minimize this page. For example: 8.        Maximize the Build Your Own Web Gem page, and then paste the HTML into the Build Your Own Web Gem dialog box. 9.        Click the "Done" button. The word-processed document now displays on your web page.