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I don't know if it is because I'm cheap or because we were too anxious to start building a website, but I never even considered buying a program to learn webpage building. Eric, my thirteen-year-old homeschooler, had built a website less than a week after we got on the Net this March. Netscape Communicator is a free browser you can download at: http.//www.netscape.com/. It has a wonderful feature called Page Composer. With Composer, it is a very easy way to create webpages. It is worth downloading even if you don't use their browser. It is similar to a word processing program. It takes care of writing all the code for the page. You can see the code and edit it if you wish, but that is rarely necessary. When I started, I didn't even realize I already had a page builder, Netscape Page Composer, on my computer. Eric started building his first page with an HTML (hyper text markup language) editor at Geocities http://www.geocities.com/. There you get a free webpage with 11 megabytes of space and a free e-mail account. They get their money from advertising, so there is one ad on each of your pages. The ads are annoying, but the price is right. Setting up the page and writing the HTML code looked confusing to me, but Eric forged ahead. (Note: Geocities was taken over by Yahoo and they now require you to give up all rights to any material you put on their site. Please don't support them. July 1, 1999) I found a site called homestead.com where it was very easy to start building a page with their WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, but slower because you have to work online. Unfortunately, they later instituted a policy in which everything that you place on your page belongs to them. Geocities now has its own WYSIWYG editor, but I haven't tried it, because I like Netscape's editor and it is faster working offline. Some WYSIWYG editors, like Homestead's and Geocities', write a JAVA script. Be aware that some people don't have JAVA-enabled browsers. Netscape's Page Composer writes the HTML code for you. It does not make frames, but if you are like me and have a small monitor, then you probably find frames as bothersome as I do. There are tons of free, online, page-building help on the web. We are still working on a link page for some of our favorite website-building help pages. I would suggest building a website first, before going out to buy a program. You'll have a better idea about what you need, and you may decide you don't need to buy anything. It may look complicated until you get into it. Then you find that it is really just word processing. In fact, my word processor builds HTML pages; but I like the simplicity of Page Composer. You don't even need a webpage provider to try it. The pages you build can sit on your hard drive and you can access them as though they were on the web. Later, if you decide you want a website, you can upload your pages. Netscape and Geocities both can use ftp (file transfer protocol), so it is relatively easy to do. I also have created pages for my two-year-old daughter that are strictly Intranet (inside network). I can use large graphic and sound files. I don't have to worry about excessive download time, because the files are coming from my hard drive. Eric likes Geocities and has "met" some wonderful volunteers there. The kids have their own area called the EnchantedForest. Eric originally built his page in the Science Fiction and Gaming area, because those are his interests. He found ads appearing on his page that lead to adult content sites, so he moved his site to the EnchantedForest where they censor the advertising. Eric likes knowing how to read and write the HTML code. I think it is because he enjoys knowing things I don't know. I find writing code tedious and not necessary. Netscape's editor is so much easier and faster to use that Eric quickly switched to using Page Composer, too. He has won four awards for his page, including a Gold Medal. I guess now you know more about my teaching style.
Engela E. homeschoolkids@geocities.com
The scanner we purchased is a Microtek SlimScan C3, from Best Buy for $50 ($80 - $30 rebate). It comes with a wonderful graphics program from Ulead called PhotoImpact4. The program is very easy to use and has a great interface for saving pictures for the web. When I registered the program I recieved a free up grade to PhotoImpact 4.2. It has a very nice animation program. If you would like to try out the programs Ulead has a "try before you buy" offer on their webpage. |
We
found learning how to build and building webpages fun. It makes a
great homeschool class. Here are some of the results of our class.
Eric's Page: http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Cottage/1345/ |
