web page construction

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,

Let's share web page construction ideas and concerns in this corner of our forum.

[clay dube]

I've set up a page for us to draw upon as we begin:

http://international.ucla.edu/asia/ncta/utla/web-workshop.asp

Web Page naming conventions

Give files simple names, without spaces. Do this for web pages and for images. For example:

assignments.html; reading1.html; calligraphy.jpg

Name your homepage -- this will make your web address shorter.

For example:
http:/www.asia.ucla.edu/lessons/jluesse/

http://www.asia.ucla.edu/lessons/fwiley/

[clay dube]

On a page on the Univ. of Kansas math dept. website, you can access commonly needed icons such as
http://www.math.ku.edu/icons/back.gif

http://www.math.ku.edu/icons/

[clay dube]

Here are some sites that provide web page templates that you can adapt. None of these are especially complicated and you could readily match them using Mozilla Composer.

San Diego State University (< 10, simple and effective)
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html

Netscape (> 10 templates, very basic)
http://wp.netscape.com/browsers/templates/

Web Diner (< 10 templates)
http://www.webdiner.com/templates/webtemp.htm

[clay dube]

e've suggested cd-roms from Corel and other resources. Here are a couple of websites to visit:

Image After
http://www.imageafter.com/

Image After offers free and paid images and textures. The assortment is huge, but there isn't much on Asia. Some backgrounds, etc. may be useful.

UNESCO Photobank

Currently being reconstructed -- relaunch is overdue
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=20289&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Excellent tips and links from the library at the University of San Francisco (note the sage copyright advice!):
http://www.lib.usf.edu/ref/ifrank/guides/images.html

Personal websites are a potential source (e.g., Flicker.com and others). Write to the photographer and explain your intentions and pledge credit and see what happens.

[clay dube]

Your disk has a newer version of the software than what I described in the “Using Composer” guide. The changes in the software are not significant, but one may cause some trouble.

You need to install either the Mozilla or Netscape _SUITE_. Simply having the Netscape browser (called Navigator) is not enough.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Insert the cd into your cd drive.

2. Some computers will display the contents of the cd automatically, for others you’ll need to use My Computer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Once you’ve got the contents displayed, click on the appropriate folder (either mac or windows).

3. You’ll see a Mozilla file (labels/numbers differ, but they start with Mozilla). Click on it to launch the installation of Mozilla.

4. Follow the installation directions provided by the program. You need to install the Suite, though you won’t use mail and some other components.

5. After installing Mozilla (you may need to restart your computer), start the program by clicking on your desktop icon or using:

Windows computers: START => All Programs => Mozilla
Macs: Macintosh HD => Applications => Mozilla

6. By default, the program opens with the Mozilla web browser, which is called Mozilla Navigator (yes, just like Netscape). On the menu bar at the top of the window, find WINDOW. Click on it to see the different components of the Mozilla Suite. Click on Composer to open your web page editor.

You’ll find that Composer looks and works very much like a word processor. The Using Composer guide should help you as you experiment with building your web page.

*********
f you run into installation problems, you may wish to download the latest version of Mozilla to your computer. This takes some time as the download file is more than 10 mb in size. Over a fast connection, it will take a few minutes.

Go to http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/

At this site you can also download guides to using the software.

Here's the official Mozilla guide:
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/guide/get-started.html

Most people will find it quicker to install the software from the provided cd-rom.

[Anonymous]

Clay, if we are doing our unit together, should our web sit be as one also? If so, would the following be an appropriate site name? http://www.asia.edu/unit/PtVicente

[Anonymous]

If you're looking for copyright-free images, I have come across a couple of good sources.

This site will help you locate free images: http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/cfimages.html

Next, the Met in New York will allow you to use their awesome images from their web site for educational and/or non-commercial sites.

Copyright rules: http://www.metmuseum.org/copyright.htm

Met web site: http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp

If anyone needs any help locating images, let me know. I have several TAs in my classes that need work!

Louis

[clay dube]

Thanks, Louis for the wonderful recommendations. I hope others finding useful image sites will share them. And, thanks, as well for offering up student assistant help.

Students are a terrific resource. I'd have them collect images, keeping a notefile listing the web source and providing details about the image. Otherwise, mistakes will be made (putting a temple in the wrong city or country....).

For basic images from Asia, the Corel disks are quite good (once about $75, they are now available for about $6 on Ebay and elsewhere). These are professional images (I used some on the Japanese geography website) and would be good for use on assignment pages and so forth.

[Anonymous]

Clay:
Do you have any example web sites made by other teachers in your program that we can take a look at? I think that would be useful, especially for the people that are making thier first web site.
My other question is about how we give credit for our images that we use. Do we add text under every image that we use that can be seen on the web page without any clicking? Or can we just add to the "invisible" description giving credit for the image?

I found another pretty cool source for copyright free images:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources

Louis

[Anonymous]

Clay, we are progressing right along on the web-site. Our newest issue is sizing the page. While we have a design we like, it doesn't print out on an 8 1/2 by 11 page. We tried the print to size option and the advanced settings. Can you help?

[Anonymous]

Hi All,
The California Department of Education web-site has a list of literature we can use. The best thing about it is that they can be sorted by language, grade, genre, and subject. I have an example that I am bringing to our next meeting. Check the web-site out.

[Anonymous]

Clay,

Once we have completed our webpage, should we email it to your office or hold onto it? Also, in your experience, does the format change in transition from mozilla to the web browser, if so do you alter the format for us?

Thanks!

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,

We'll schedule another web session and hopefully have all the computers running Mozilla and keep the projector running.

On submission of your site, you'll give me a disc copy of your site and I'll upload it to the web for you. This is easily done, but because of new security concerns, I can no longer give our teachers direct access to the UCLA website. Please also print out the pages so that I can offer you feedback on them. You'll need to provide print copies and digital files for the curriculum units as well.

On samples:
the lesson plan section of our K-12 site has teacher-prepared materials:

http://www.asia.ucla.edu/lessons.asp

Other sites:
Click on the participant lists for earlier UTLA seminars to see those pages:http://international.ucla.edu/asia/ncta/utla/

Some teachers choose to host their pages elsewhere. Tim Kelly and Caryn Kelly have theirs at:
http://mrkellysclass.net/asian_studies_6th_grade%20folder/index.htmlhttp://mrkellysclass.net/asian_studies.html

[clay dube]

Hi Jayme,

In general, using tables allows you to control the formatting, but pages will look different on different computers because of browser and screen differences.

You can get an idea of what your pages will look like by using file | open in your browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, Opera, AOL, MSN Explorer). You can check your links by clicking on them, etc. You should definitely do this before sending me your final effort.

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