Think
of your purpose
- There
are many valid
reasons for schools, teachers, and students to create websites.
- Be
clear of what your
reasons are before you start.
- Think
about your time
commitments, and what you can reasonably devote to this project
- Think
about how often
you want/need to be updating your web site. Weekly? Monthly? Twice a
year?
Once a year? Your content may vary depending how current it needs to be
kept.
Think
of your end-user
- Most
home users still
access the Internet using dial-up connections (i.e. phone line and
modems).
Limit the size of graphics to help keep your pages speedy. (And resize
graphics
in a graphics program, not directly in Composer). Don't use spashy
special
effects unless you have a real need for them-- not just to show off.
- Many
users have their
displays set to 640x480 resolution. Design your pages for this
resolution--
otherwise they will be difficult to read.
- Don't
try to post
scans of student writing. They are difficult to read on-screen, and
take forever
to display on a slow connection. Do post scaled-down scans of student
artwork,
with the text (if any) retyped.
- If
you want to include
many pictures or a few large pictures, create small 'thumbnail'
versions of
the pictures, and link them to larger versions. Then the main page will
display
relatively quickly, and viewers can choose whether or not to wait for
the
larger version to display.
Set
up a structure
- Plan
and create a
structured set of folders on the hard drive of a single computer. Keep
up-to-date
copies of everything for your website in the proper location on that
computer,
and when ready, upload it to your server, mirroring the folder
structure.
- Each
different page
should have its own folder, organized in logical groups. For instance,
if
you are posting your monthly PAC newsletters, create a PAC folder, and
within
it, folders for each month. If each class will have a page, create a
folder
for each class. If desired, individual students can have folders within
their
class's folder.
Plan
for the future
- Plan
for future years.
Perhaps, make a folder with this year's dates: 2000-2001. Make all of
this
years contents in a series of subfolders within this main folder-- a
sub-folder
for each division, folders for major activities: sports, PAC, etc. Then
it's
easy to expand or change each year.
Don't
reinvent the wheel
- The
Weir Elementary
librarian has researched educational links for elementary subject
areas, and
posted them on her school's website: http://weir.vsb.bc.ca/library/research.htm.
Since
she's
done all this work, instead of trying to duplicate it, why
not
just post a link to her page? The Internet makes it easy to link and
share
information-- there's no need for each of us to repeat on another's
work.
Testing,
1, 2, 3...
- Check
all your pages
on your computer. See if the graphics display properly. See if the
links bring
up the correct pages, both on your computer, and across the Internet.
Change
your video display to different screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600,
1024x768,
etc) and see how your page looks. (Generally, if it works at 640x480,
it
will be OK at the higher resolutions-- with some blank space along the
right).
Check at 256 colours. Your photos will look awful-- but you probably
will
choose to live with this.
- Upload
your pages
to your server, go online and check that all your graphics display and
that
the links still work. If they don't, fiddle with the links in the copy
on
your computer, and upload again. (Remember when you're
checking again after
you upload the revised version, click the Reloadbutton
on your browser-- otherwise it will show you the old, un-edited
version!)
Live
with it for a while...
- Most
times, we have
to live with our web sites online for a while to see what works and
what doesn't.
Don't be surprised if you'll have lots of ideas of things you should
have done. Get students, parents, teachers, and friends to try out the
site
and tell you what works and what they found hard to do.
- Schedule
time for
a major revision. Version 2 is almost always one you're much happier
with.
For
more information...
Here are
some books that
I have found useful, both for detailed information on HTML, but also
for
giving a focus on creating Web pages that are effective and look good:
- The
Non-Designer's
Web Book- 2nd Edition, by Robin Williams and John Tollett (c)
2000, Peachpit
Press (US$34.99, CDN$52.50). If you only read one, pick this relatively
slender,
nicely designed book.
- Teach
Yourself
Web Publishing with HTML 4 in 21 Days, by Laura Lemay (c)
1999, SAMS
Publishing (US$49.99, CDN$71.95) A big volume with a series of lessons.
- Web
Pages That
Suck (c) 1998 and Son of Web Pages That Suck,
by Vincent Flanders
(c) 2002, Sybex Books (US$45.00, CDN$72.00). Learn good design by
looking
at bad design. Check out the website at: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com
- Writing
for the
Web, Geeks' Edition, by Crawford Killian (c) 2000,
Self-Counsel Press,
$21.95. Focus on making your text work on the Web.
Alan
Zisman
is a Vancouver
educator, writer, and computer specialist. He can be reached
at
alan@zisman.ca
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