Easy Web Pages and Websites

You can easily make your own web pages and compile pages into web sites, no matter which of the purposes you select from the rest of this online manual.  Here's how.

The Easiest: Online Services

The easiest way to make a web page or a multi-page web site is to use a commercial, free provider of web space.  They provide templates for making pages and you don't have to worry about how to get your page online, since you make it online and the provider tells you your web page's address.

Samples

My current favorite is Tripod, which has been in operation for at least 10 years.  My page doesn't match their template, but you can look at it anyhow, though it's a bit dated, being from 1998. Sponsored by Lycos, this site sports a cover page that includes website building supplements and domain names, all for a fee.  Other (sometimes free) online communities, e.g. Angelfire, and a free email service, MailCity, and the biggest early community, Geocities, ordinarily add pop-up ads or static ads to your website.  The opening page also boasts that Tripod has been "leading the homepage building revolution since 1995." 

When you first visit Tripod's homepage, you should "Sign on" right away.  In 2008, that means clicking the "START NOW" button prominent in mid-screen. During subsequent visits (if any) you can log in.* You can look at samples of other people's web pages to get design ideas and some notion of what sort of content people put on their web pages.  By 2008, Tripod had added blogs and a photo share software in their free (ad-driven) website.

Tripod also provides space for teachers and students to make their own web pages.  Different skill levels are available.  Visit the classroom site for the demo.   Feel free to build your own page(s) there and have your students do so, too.

Some Other Online Space Providers and Reasons to Use Them

I prefer Tripod because it's directions are easier to understand, it will handle Front Page web pages and sites (I now use Front Page to make most of my websites), and it has recently developed space for whole classes of students to develop their own web pages and sites. Besides, their pop-up ads are the easiest to click out of the way or close, and often I don't see any ad pop up near the top of my web page.  But there are others, so you can take your pick--especially if

• your college isn't hosting course sites for you yet (probably because no pioneering faculty have negotiated with the computer staff or the staff hasn't worked out the security codes yet)

• your college hasn't worked out the security to let students onto the browser to make their own pages, but you want them to do so

• you want to play before putting serious pages up

• you want to put up a site for fun, or about a hobby or interest that has nothing to do with your teaching--or a business that you run, which wouldn't be appropriate for your college to host

For anybody:  Geocities         Angelfire         Fortune City

For college teachers and students:  Blackboard

Pretty Easy: Course Management System Templates

One reason for Blackboard to host websites for instructors is to train them to use their hosting, of course, so that their colleges will be urged to purchase the full service, which is fast building a reputation for being reliable, easy, and fun.

Many colleges have adopted Blackboard and housed on the college's own dedicated server.

A template means that you are prompted to put information into typing fields and each typing field becomes a space on the page.  Information can include photos, animation, video, sound, or words.  Formatting is automatic, and you can make bold or italic print, for instance.

Samples

Here's a sample I made in Web Course in a Box's template for an instructor page. (If you're using a modem, the first frame of the animation loads fairly rapidly, but the photo won't move for six more minutes at 28K.) 

WCB offers students the chance to make a web page from a template, too.

Find out if your college has already purchased a system for putting web sites online and sign up for the training to learn it.

Easy to Make, But Who's Gonna Put It on the Web?

Some software programs include web page makers.

Word97 (Office Suite 97) includes an installation option of a web page wizard.  The wizard offers a few templates, e.g. the simple layout for a list and the personal home page. It also offers a few backgrounds (in 2000, several color schemes). 

For a walk-through of the procedure for using this Web Page Wizard that is part of Word 97, visit this website that was made using the Word 97 Web Page Wizard.  As the illustration at left shows, access the Wizard by opening Word 97 (or 2000), clicking on the word "File" and then "New," clicking on the "Web Pages" tab and then the icon for the "Web Page Wizard.wiz"

Netscape Communicator's Page Composer comes with an online tutorial. 

As you can see from the graphic at left, when Netscape Communicator is open, click on "File" and "New," select "Page From Wizard" to open a three-frame wizard that serves as a tutorial.  The Wizard opens in Netscape because it's online.  Notice that the screen shot below contains a web address at the Netscape home website.

The graphic below shows the three frames of the tutorial.  On the right is the Preview frame (scroll down to the bottom to click the "Start" button to begin the tutorial).  The right frame shows the result of each step you apply to your page.  On the left is the Instruction frame that contains links for completing each step--setting a title, typing an introduction and other paragraphs, choosing a color scheme, as shown below. The working area is the bottom frame. After completing several steps, you have a web page--if you click the "Build" button at the bottom of the Instructions. Hint: Save your page in a FOLDER, since web pages are several files, and you don't want them sprayed across a folder of documents or graphics.

Making the page is rather easy, since you just select colors or type words.  But your choices are limited for graphics and fancy stuff.

Once you have a page, then what?

Publishing Your Web Page

You can send your page to one of the web publishing services listed in the top section of this page--using their directions.  You can arrange to put your page onto the college's website--using the directions provided by your web staff. Usually, they will arrange a user ID and a password you'll need to edit the page and add more--either directly or via file transfer protocol (ftp).

The Bottom Line

So which of these methods is the best?  First, it depends on which is available to you.

Which of these do you have?

• a web browser only--either Netscape or Internet Explorer

• Netscape Communicator

• Word97--with the web page wizard installed

• direct access to your college's web browser

If you have--or are willing to install--all of these, you can use any or all of the options mentioned in this website. If you only the first three, you will need to arrange access to a web server that will house your website--e.g. Tripod or another commercial site or your college's web. 

Tradeoffs

You may or may not find it easier to deal with your college's web staff than the staff of a commercial website.  Your college web staff would have to list for their server each authorized user and arrange userID and password for each individual; such a list usually grows incrementally over time and should include only active users of websites. Your college web staff may be able to arrange file transfer protocol (ftp) access for you and train you to use it; you may find it handy to use a Windows-compatible ftp software such as Ipswitch's WSFTP.  In some cases, your college's network staff might be able to arrange direct access to your website from your desktop computer, as an extra drive letter under "My Computer" or as a link through the local network to a remote computer or server.

Commercial webs usually don't involve ftp, but their staff is not in your building or on your campus.  If you don't mind working through a browser and via email, you may be able to arrange access fairly easily for editing your website.

* Yup, another user ID and password to keep hints for in your "password" file--you do keep such a file in your word processor, don't you? Don't feel bad, I don't either. My hints--but not my passwords--are written on post-it notes stuck to the front of my computer monitor. But a password file is a good idea--if you copy it to disk every time you change it.