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Designing a Classroom Web Page with Netscape Composer

This portion of today's session will walk you through the steps of designing a basic classroom web page.
 
 

First, let's take a look at some examples of how other classes are using a web page to enhance their literacy curriculum. Pocantico Hills School students create new bodies of knowledge to share with others. The Gaines Gang keeps their kindergarten links organized by theme or month of the year. Teachers in Murietta Valley keep their grade level book resources organized for Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3. Comsewogue School uses their page for all their collaborative projects (This is where Susan Silverman lives!)  West Elementary School students have created more impressive new web sites for others to visit and learn.

Can you think of any ways that your class could interact with the rest of the world using a web page?

Give it a try...
 
 

You can design a web page!  Your Task: Use Netscape Composer (and the directions below) to create a beginning web site for your classroom that will foster your use of the Internet in your literacy instruction.  Think of a good title and insert a piece of clip art.  Set aside a place for teacher links and a place for student links.  Locate at least two "teacher" links (resources for your own reading) and at least three "student" links (for student's to practice or apply their literacy skills) from today's session that you would like to access from your classroom web site.  Create a link to each of these resources using the link button.  Email the file to your school so you can access it when you return to your classroom.  Once you're back in your classroom, you can save the page to your hard drive, make changes to it and use it anytime you want.

See the example website to get some ideas.

The following directions are also included in your handouts.
Visit my website at LEARN for more comprehensive directions.

1. Open Netscape Communicator (the browser).
2. Select Communicator: Composer from the top menubar.
3. If you are creating a new page, just being typing or adding your clip art.  Use the formatting menu bar to change text size and style, font type and color, to add a list of items or to align your text to a margin (left, center, or right)
4. To open a file you've already created, (you may choose to use the template to help you get started); select Open from the top row of buttons and click on the little black down arrow.  Use the scroll bars to select the location of your file.  Select the filename for your page and click on Open.
5. To create a link, first type in the words you want to be the link.  Then, highlight the word/s with your mouse (click and drag from one end to the other), and then click on the link button.  Type the http://  address in the box that says "Link to a page location or file" and click OK.
6. To avoid typing the entire URL when you create a new link, you can copy it directly from the web site itself.  To do this, you'll need to open a new window with File:New: Navigator Window.  (You'll now notice two Netscape windows open and labeled with buttons on the Start bar at the bottom of your screen.) Locate the website you want to link to, click in the address bar to highlight the URL and select Edit: Copy.  Then, move back to your first window, open the link window, click in the URL empty box and selecte Edit:Paste.  The URL should be pasted into the box and then click OK.
7. To insert a picture, you first need to locate the picture on a webpage and save it in the folder with your file. To do this, while you're viewing the picture at the website, put your mouse over the picture and right click.  Choose Save Image As from the menu options, name the picture and save it in the SAME folder as your web page.  Then, open your web page file, put your mouse where you want the image to go, select Insert:Image from the top menubar, select the image you want and click OK.  Your image should appear.  You can use the alignment buttons to move the picture around. (see screen shots of this process)
8. To test your link, you need to save your page (File:Save) and then click on Preview to see your link underlined.  Click on the link to see if it works.
9. To make a table (to help organize your text into columns), click the mouse where you want the table to be and click on the Table button from the top menubar.  Indicate how many rows, columns, size and alignment and click OK
10. To add a bar that divides your text into sections, click the mouse where you want the divider to be and click on the H.Line button from the top menubar.
11. To save your file on your disk, click File: Save As, and click on the little black down arrow.  Use the scroll bars to select Floppy Drive: A, name the file and click on Save.
12. To open your file in the web browser, you have two choices,  You can find the file and click twice on it; it should open up in your Internet browser.  If you're in the browser already, click on File:Open Page, find the file you're looking for and select it.