Web Primers

Your school has just been wired for internet access, there is a brand new computer sitting in your classroom and you are one of the technoterrified.  Where do you start?

• If you are new to the internet, you will want to start with a basic web introduction, such as the one written by WebTeacher.  Here you will find a "quick and dirty" fast-start Web Primer, as well as a full-blown Web Tutorial.  A great place to begin.

• You will find another set of excellent tutorials at the TeachersWeb Web Training site.  This set of interactive tutorials will help you use the internet effectively in an academic setting.

Learning New Software

• If your computer skills are newly acquired or in the process of being acquired, you will surely want to take a look at this set of tutorials designed for teachers.  A nice feature of each tutorial is the "Cool for School" section at the end which provides tips on how to use that particular software package in a school setting.  These online tutorials also have a print version for the script-bound!  Check out:

• Internet Explorer 4.0
• Internet Explorer 5.0
• PowerPoint 98
• Front Page 98
• Outlook Express
• Front Page 2000
• Office 2000

Creating Your First Web Page

• Building your first home page?  The Teachers.Net Website Handbook will help you get started.  In six easy chapters (Introduction, The Tools of the Trade, Setting up the Desktop, Text Editors and Viewing Source Code, Web Page Components, and Uploading your Web Page) you will be able to develop a basic web page that is suitable for the academic environment.

• I would, of course, be remiss if I failed to mention my own set of eight tutorials on building a basic web page using Netscape Composer.  Do it the easy way!!

• There is much to be said for spinning your own web, but some teachers have neither the time nor the inclination to learn even the most basic concepts of web page design.  There is help for these folks, too!!  You can build your website online with no knowledge of HTML using CLASSROOM.tripod.com.  At this site, you will be led through a series of forms which when completed will automatically generate a web page for you.  It will produce a very basic website without a lot of bells and whistles, but functional nonetheless.

• Another site for spinning your own web is an online community found at anexa.com.  This site provides a much richer environment than CLASSROOM since it includes the ability to create live chat rooms, discussion forums, an events calendar, announcements, ticker tape, etc., but suffers from the same uniformity (ie, all websites tend to look pretty much alike) as the first.  However, if you're pushed for time and need a fast, easy way to spin a web, this one's a winner.

• A third option is found at blackboard.com, a site that offers everything the above two sites offer, plus even more goodies.  Again, no knowledge of html code is required to produce a coordinated online course website. The list of options here includes:

          Asynchronous Communication (threaded discussions)
          Synchronous Communication (real-time chat and whiteboard)
          Assessment Tools and Gradebook
          Collaborative Work Groups
          Content Creation (e.g. syllabus and course description pages)
          Database Reporting and CourseSite Statistics
          Messaging System
          Online File Exchange (between instructor and student)
          Online Tutorial
          User Tracking
 
• One of my personal favorites is Nicenet's Internet Classroom Assistant, "a sophisticated communication tool that brings powerful World-Wide-Web based conferencing, personal messaging, document sharing, scheduling and link/resource sharing to a variety of learning environments....  Nicenet provides the ICA free of charge with no advertising."  A wonderful tool for busy teachers.

Online Activities Even Beginners Can Use!
 

• Schoolnotes.com allows teachers to have a bulletin board for posting announcements, assignments, etc.  This is a great communication tool for keeping both students and parents informed of what you are doing in class and alerting them to upcoming assignments (Quiz this Thursday!!).  A simple, easy to use interface makes this a great place for beginners to start.  An additional feature of Schoolnotes is the ability to create flashcards for vocabulary study.

• Eboard.com allows teachers to post announcements, assignments, photos, etc. without having to go to all the trouble of actually creating a web page.  Eboard creates the page for you.  The format is that of a bulletin board with notes posted to it.  Easy and simple way to communicate with your students and their parents!

• Forums@Bruin.net will allow you to create an online discussion forum with no pain.  Try it out!

• EBook Builder 4 - Create a book from your HTML and text document files.  The book will also include images in .bmp, .gif, or .jpg formats. The Ebook itself can be read like a normal book with a left and a right page and page navigation buttons to flip thru the book. Creating an Ebook just takes a couple of minutes: click and drag files and give the create command; Ebook Scripts and support for sound (wav, mid and mp3) files; print pages from your Ebook. This software creates a freestanding, compressed executable (.exe) file.  Quick and easy!!  Your students will love writing their own books with this freeware program.

• A great place to begin adding pzazz to your newly acquired web knowledge is a web site called Filamentality.  To quote their own blurb:  "Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web resources into activities appropriate for learners. So it helps you combine the Filaments of the Web with a learner's mentality (get it?). Support is built in through Mentality Tips, so you'll be guided right along the way and end up with a Web-based activity you can share with others even if you don't know    anything about HTML, Web servers, or all that www-dot stuff."  This is my kind of web site - quick and dirty!

One page of this website describes the five formats you can use with Filamentality.  The first is a Hotlist, a list of websites you can build for creating appropriate activities.  Using websites you have pre-selected, students may wish to create a Multimedia Scrapbook.  Or, if you wish to begin using the web for information discovery, you may want to send your students on a Treasure Hunt.  For a more focused version of the treasure hunt, you may wish to use a Subject Sampler instead.  "Rather than uncover hard knowledge (as they do in a Treasure Hunt), students are asked about their perspectives on topics, comparisons to experiences they have had, interpretations of artworks or data, etc."  Finally, for a truly integrated approach, you may want to try a Web Quest with your students.  "Basically, a WebQuest presents student groups with a challenging task, scenario, or problem to solve. It's best to choose aspects of a topic that are under dispute or that at least offer a couple different perspectives. Current events, controversial social and environmental topics work well."
 
• Create online games and quizzes with Quia.  This website allows you to create five types of games:  matching, concentration, flashcards, wordsearch, and hangman.  Not only can you create your own activities, you can also access activities created by other teachers.  The site for French includes 203 activities, some of which are textbook specific (A bord, Allez viens, Avzntage, Bienvenue, Bravo, Camarades, C'est ça, Connaissances, Dis-moi, Discovering French (rouge, bleu, blanc), French in Action, Encore Tricolore, On y va, Nous les Jeunes, Princeton Review SAT French, and Viens Voir.  The German site contains over 60 grammar and vocabulary activities, some for textbooks such as Deutsch Aktuell.Geschaftsdeutsch (by Gudrun Clay), Gute Reise 1, Gute Reise 3, Komm Mit! 1, and  Komm Mit! 3.  With over 180 activities for culture, grammar and vocabulary, the Spanish site also covers specific textbooks such as A Bordo, Adelante,| Arcos y Alamedas, Bienvenidos, Bravo(1 and 2), Nuevos Amigos, Paso a Paso (1, 2, 3, and B), Spanish for Mastery 3, Ven Conmigo (1, 2, and 3), Vision y Voz, and Voces y Vistas.  The online quizzes are based on JavaScript, but no knowledge of JavaScript is required.  As with most online web sites for creating activities, teachers must register in order to be able to use the service.  However, there is no charge -- it is free.  Be sure to write down your login routine!!

• You can create more games with Game-O-Matic.  This website allows you to create Concentration, Drag and Drop Matching and Timed Matching games.  Fun and easy!

• How about some puzzles?  Every language teacher would like to be able to do crossword puzzles for vocabulary building or cultural content learning.  Several websites will help you build your puzzles automatically.  Try, for example, Puzzlemaker.com which will allow you to create all sorts of puzzle games such as:  Mazed Things (unique hand-drawn mazes), Computer Generated Mazes (choose from a variety of shapes, set the size, and let the computer generate a unique maze ready for you to paste into your newsletter), Word Search (type in a list of words and the computer will hide them in a grid of letters), Word Search with a Hidden Message (after all of the words are found the letters that are not used reveal a hidden message!), Criss-Cross Puzzle (your list of words will be linked together, numbered and formatted, ready for you to print and hand out). Number Blocks (creates a block of numbers that will challenge arithmetic and algebra skills. Each row, column and diagonal add up to a total but some numbers are missing), Math Square (math formulas are linked together to form a square), Double Puzzle (enter a set of words or phrases to be scrambled. Then enter a final phrase that the solver will be able to put together from the letters in the clue words. The final phrase can be scrambled or numbered), Cryptograms (enter a phrase and the computer will assign a number to each letter), Letter Tiles (enter a phrase and the computer will break it into tiles with letters on them. The solver unscrambles the tiles to rebuild the phrase, Fallen Phrase (enter a phrase and the computer will place the letters in a grid. Each letter appears in the same column, but below where it should be. The solver must put the letters back in the grid and rebuild the phrase).
• Another site for constructing crossword puzzles is Online Crosswords.  This site contains three javascripts that you can download to create your own puzzles.  It also contains an archive of puzzles created by others, including a section for foreign language puzzles.  The site also has links to Word Search puzzlemakers and Word Slide puzzlemakers.

• If you really like crossword puzzles for your classes, you might want to look into purchasing Crossword Construction Kit (for Windows 95, 98 and NT).  For $19.95, you can download it from the internet or order it online to be delivered to you on floppies.