Tech Guidance

1. FrontPage Express

The web authoring program that is accessible to our students is FrontPage Express. Since my students were going to be working with this particular program, I made all instructions on the Help Page for FrontPage Express. Many other programs are formatted similarly to FrontPage Express. If your students will not be using FrontPage Express though, preview the Help Page instructions, compare the instructions with the format of the program your students will be using, and become aware of any differences.

2. Student Folders

• Students must place their HTML pages and pictures in folders.
• The easiest situation is when a group of students can share a common folder.
• If it is not possible for students to share a common folder, students can place work in individual folders and then you (or a tech support person) will have to merge the individual folders into group folders.
• Directions instruct students to name their project folder "foodweb" and their picture folder, within the foodweb folder, "pictures". It is advised that all students name their folders with the same names. This makes control of folders easier.

3. Getting Started With Your Students

• Before beginning this project it is advised to create several pages on your own and become comfortable with the procedures.
• Once your students are ready to learn how to make a web page, start by showing them how to copy a picture into their "pictures" folder. I had all students go the the Home Page Template and copy the green "picture goes here" picture into their pictures folder.
• Show them how to copy a template page. I had all students copy the Home Page Template into their foodweb folder. When students save the template pages the names of the pages must be homepage.htm, foodwebs.htm, producers.htm, herbivores.htm, carnivores.htm, omnivores.htm, scavengers.htm, conservation.htm. The links at the bottom of each student HTML page will not work unless the pages are named correctly.
• If the "picture goes here" picture does not appear on the template page, delete the picture from the page and teach the students how to insert a picture. If the picture does appear teach them how to insert that picture on another place in the page. *Warning - If you teach the students how to copy & paste a picture, several will do that when making their web pages and the pictures will not appear. It is only safe to copy & paste a picture when it is already saved in a folder or when the computer is connected to the Internet. Even when the computer is connected to the Internet you do not have control over the desired picture, the picture's URL can be changed or the picture can be removed.*
• Show the students how to change the font, font color, and background color.
• Teach the students how make links.
• If you want students to delete the "Back" button on the template pages then instruct to do the following. Put the cursor in the green field, go to table - select - table, and then strike the delete key. The button will then be removed from the page.
• Otherwise then the "Back" button table, students should not alter the structure of any other tables on the template pages. They can replace the text within the tables with their own text, but problems will arise if students begin trying to alter the structure of these pages.

4. Trouble Shooting

• Missing picture - Student most likely copied and pasted the picture onto the page. Student most save the picture in their "pictures" folder and then insert the picture onto their page. If the picture was originally saved, the pathway to the picture could be wrong. Re-insert the picture onto the page.
• Can not move cursor into a cell - Student most likely deleted the cell. Place the cursor in the cell to the left of the missing cell. Go to table - insert - cell. Problem should then be solved.
• Link is not working - This is most likely caused by moving a page into our out of a folder, which alters the pathway to the linked page. The original pathway to the linked page could have also been wrong. Re-insert link with correct pathway.

5. Publishing Student Web Sites

• You must have access to an Internet or intranet server to publish the web sites.
• You should also create a central page that links to the student web sites. See my Student Web Sites page for an example. To make things easy, you can copy this page and change the names and links.
• Organize student folders. I gave each group a number and placed each groups' work in a folder with the group number being the name of the folder (i.e. group one's work in folder 1, group two's work in folder 2).
• Publish your work by using a FTP program or through FrontPage if you are using FrontPage.
• Check student links. If all pages are named correctly they should all be linked, there most likely will be some mistakes though
• If you publish student work on the Internet, you can not publish the students' complete names without written permission by their parents.

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