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Here is a good lesson plan for creating a website
Computers & Internet
9, 10, 11, 12
Title – “Hey Dawg, I’m on the Internet”
By – Bob Saxon
Primary Subject – Computers / Internet
Grade Level – 9 – 12
General Goal: To; create a personal website
Specific Objectives: In; order to create a personal website, students will be able to do the following:
1.  Create; a Yahoo e-mail account
2. Sign; up for a Geocities.com website
3. Find;, save, and upload a website background
4.  Create; and upload a logo
5.  Create; and upload buttons
6.  Create; links to a second page, home page, and another website
7.  Create; a layered textbox
8. Find; and upload at least 6 photos from the Internet and create caption for each
9. Find; and upload clipart graphics
10. Insert a counter, news link, Yahooligan, and page transition onto the website
11. Adjust page height and width to accommodate content
Required Materials: A computer with Internet access and the “Hey Dawg, I’m on the Internet” worksheet. (Students usually spend anywhere from 1/2 hour to 1 hour daily creating their websites. Some spend just a few days on this activity, while others spend weeks getting their sites just perfect. In my program for at-risk students, 1 credit is awarded for every 12 hours of productive activity in the classroom.)
Anticipatory Set: (Using the step-by-step procedures, create your own personal website or a class website before you begin this lesson with your students). Ask students if they’ve ever thought about having their own website to share with their family and friends. Ask students if they’ve seen any personal websites on the Internet. Ask what students like and dislike about personal websites they’ve seen. Ask them what kinds of information people tend to include on personal websites. Tell students they will all be creating their own personal website. Create a list on the board of possible topics to include. Have students go to their computers and send them to the website you created. Ask for questions and comments.
“HEY DAWG, I’M ON THE INTERNET”
For this assignment, you are going to use “Geocities.com” to create your own free personal website. In order to receive credit in Computer Literacy, you will need to include everything listed below. Make sure you’ve checked off each element on the attached rubric before submitting your website for a grade.
1. Planning . Before you actually create your website, you’ll need to do some planning. Make a diagram of what you think you’d like your first 2 pages to look like. You can include anything you’d like — your hobbies, photos, favorite music, poetry you’ve written, links to your favorite websites, personal achievements, etc. To get some ideas, you might want to go to Geocities and search through some of the personal websites. Show your plan to me before you go to step #2.
2. Yahoo E-Mail account : If you already have a Yahoo e-mail account, skip to step #3. If you don’t have one, go to www.yahoo.com to create one. Once you’re at the Yahoo website, under “Personal Assistant,” click on “Sign Up Now.” You’ll be taken to a page entitled “Welcome to Yahoo! Mail.” Under “Free Yahoo! Mail,” click on “Sign Up Now.” Follow all the instructions, and you’ll receive you own e-mail account.
3. Geocities website : Now go to Geocities , and under “Sign In Now,” type in your Yahoo ID and Password. You’ll be taken to a new page. Click on “Yahoo! PageBuilder.” You’ll be taken to another new page — click on “Launch PageBuilder.” The PageBuilder program will now load — it will take a few minutes, so be patient.
Now save your website: PageBuilder will open, and you’ll have the first page of your website — blank. First of all, save it by clicking the “save” disk at the top of the page. A window will open, and type in the word “index” and click on OK. You now have a website.
4. Background : The first thing you’ll need for your website is a background. Open a new browser and go to www.grsites.com . Click on “Absolute Background Textures Archive,” search through the different backgrounds available by color and texture, and choose one you’d like to use.
You will need to save the background so that you can upload it to your website.
Now save your background: You’ll need to go into “My Pictures” on your computer and create a new folder for your website. After you’ve done that, right click on the background you chose, and then click on “Save as Picture.” The “Save as Picture” box will open — find the folder you created earlier, open it, name the background in the “file name” box, and save it.
Now upload your background: Go back to your PageBuilder. Go up to the top of the page and click on “Format” and then “Background” and the “Background Properties” box will open. Click on “upload” and the “Upload Files” box will open. Click on “Browse” and the “Choose Files” box will open. Find your folder and then the background you downloaded and double click on it to open it. Now back in the “Upload Files” box, click on “upload.” Your background will now upload — again, be patient because it might take some time. Finally, back in the “Background Properties” box, click on “user files,” find your background as you named it, click on it, and when it appears in the “preview box,” click okay. Finally — you have a background. If you don’t like it, go back to the original website and repeat the process until you find one you like.
5. Second page . On PageBuilder, click on the “New” button at the top of the page and a new page will open. Click on the “Save” button and type in “page2″ in the window. Now bring in a background and a logo for your second page as you did for your first. When you’ve done this, click “Save” again to save the page.
6. Logo : Go back to www.grsites.com and click on “GRSites Logo Maker.” Choose a style from the six available logos, click on it, and follow the online instructions. Now save it just like you saved your background into “My Pictures.” Then upload your logo using the “Pictures” button at the top of PageBuilder.
7. Buttons . Now you’re going to create some link buttons for your webpage.Go back to www.grsites.com and click on “GRSites Button Maker.” Follow the online instructions and make at least 3 buttons — 1 to use as a link to your second page, one to use as a link on your second page back to your “home” page, and one to use as a link to another website.
Now save your buttons to “My Pictures” and then upload your buttons to your website using the “Pictures” button as you did in #5 above.
8. Links . Now that you have the buttons you created on your website, you’re ready to link them. To create a link, select or left-click on the button and then click on the “link” at the top of the PageBuilder page. For your link to the second page of your website, click on the down arrow and bring up “My Page” in the box, and then type in “page2.” For a link to another website, click on the down arrow and bring up “Web URL” in the box, and then type the web address such as www.secondspin.com . For the “home” button on your second page, click on the down arrow and bring up “My Page” and then type in “index.”
9. Layered textbox . First of all, in PageBuilder, click on “Format” and “Page Properties,” and then check the “Layered HTML” box. Now click on “Text” at the top of the page. Using the arrows on the text box, make the box larger — at least 2″ wide by 3″ long. Now click again on the text box, go up to the “Fill” button at the top of the page (bucket with paint spilling out), find a color you like for the background of your text box, and click on it. Your text box will now fill with that color. Now type in one of 2 letters in the box, and go up to the “Text fill” button at the top of the page (a large T with paint spilling over) and click on the same color you use to fill the text box. You’ll now have a solid-colored box.
Click on “Text” again at the top of the page and type something in a contrasting color to the solid box. Now move your text box of writing on top of the solid-colored box, and you have a layered text box.
10. Photos . Find at least 3 photos on the Internet for each of the 2 pages of your website (6 total), download them to “My Pictures,” and upload them to your website using the “Pictures” button as you did before. For one of your photos, create a frame around it using a “text fill box” as in #8 above. Also, for each of your photos, create a caption using a “text box” as you did in #8.
11. Clip art . Find one or two clip art graphics to put on your website. You can use the “GRSites” you used before or any others you can find on the Internet. Download clip art the same way you downloaded photos.
12. Counter. In PageBuilder, click on “Insert,” “Basics,” and “Counter.” A counter will appear on your webpage (you only need this on one of your pages). Now double-click on the counter and a new box will open. Check the style you like on the left, the font and background colors, the size, and the number of digits you want to appear on your counter. Now click OK. You won’t be able to actually see the numbers until you go to your actual web page. The counter will tell you how many visitors you’ve had to your site.
13. News link . Click on “Insert” and “Headlines” and choose one of the categories listed. Place the link wherever you’d like on one of your webpages.
14. Yahooligans . Click on “Insert” and “Yahooligans” and choose one of the categories listed. Place the link wherever you’d like on one of your webpages.
15. Page transitions . This means how the page website opens — blend, circle in, etc. Click on “Insert,” “Page Effects,” and “IE Page Transitions.” Click on OK and follow the instructions in the box that opens. Then click OK again and a little icon will appear on your PageBuilder. You’ll have to go to your actual website to view the transition. If you’re not happy with the one you chose, go through the process again and redo it until you find one you like.
16. Other effects . Feel free to experiment with any of the other “Page Effects” under “Insert.” Please use no more than two of these effects.
17. Page size . If you need more room on your page or pages, click on “Format” and “Page Properties” and change the “width” and/or “height” settings.
18. View your website. Go to www.geocities.com/youryahooID and you’ll be taken to the actual website you created. Check to see if all the links work properly and if you’re happy with your layouts. If you need to make changes, go back to your PageBuilder.
Now submit your website address to me so I can evaluate it.
Plan for Independent Practice: I’ve really been amazed that by the time my students have completed their websites, they have become quite proficient using all the elements as stated in the lesson plan. However, for those students who have needed a lot of assistance and who have not demonstrated proficiency, ask them to create another webpage to demonstrate what they have learned.
Closure: Speak with students individually when they think they’ve completed their website. Ask them to go over the rubric grading sheet to make sure all elements have been included. Ask them if they’re satisfied with the layout and design of their site, and encourage them to make changes if they choose to do so.
Assessment Based on Objectives: Create a rubric containing all the elements listed on the worksheet with a range of possible scores from 1 — 5 based on how well those elements were incorporated into the website. You might also add another column for creativity and/or how attractive the website is to the eye. Another possible form of assessment would be to have students create a new page in PageBuilder and, one by one, bring in each required element while you watch.
Adaptations (for students with learning disabilities): I have some students who read at the 3rd- and 4th-grade level and who thus have a difficult time focusing on reading material. So for this website creation, I either have a more advanced student, myself, or my classroom aide sit with these students and verbally talk them through the instructions for website creation.
Possible Connections to Other Subjects: I teach at-risk 9th- 10th-graders in a community day school in northern California. Students come to us for a variety of reasons, not all of them academic. I will be starting a unit on the rainforest soon, and one of the things I will be asking my more advanced students to do is to create their own website about the rainforest. This will include pertinent information, links to other rainforest websites, personal opinions on the destruction of the rainforest, etc.
Note to teachers: If you have any other ideas to include with this lesson plan, please e-mail me. I’m always open to improvement.
E-Mail Bob Saxon !