Back to the creating a web page -- for this
course, I am focusing on ways to create web pages easily and quickly.
The activities below will walk you through two ways that you can create
a web page: (a) using Microsoft Word
and (b) then by saving a web page
already "published" on the internet.
However, remember that, to revise the information on a web page, you must use a web editor program (such as KompoZer or SeaMonkey Composer), not Microsoft Word.
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An aside: For this class, to revise information in a saved
template, you will use a very basic web editor,
such as KompoZer,
which replaces Nvu
(full version available from
Portable Apps suite) or SeaMonkey
Composer. Yes,
you could
"create" your own html code or use web editors such as Dreamweaver or Front Page, but those
approaches are much more time-intensive because of the learning curves
involved. Should you want to do more with web creation, you should take
courses and/or create more involved projects to learn what you need to
know. Bottom line: For this course, for those of you who choose the approach of creating a basic web page, your final project involves using a template that I provide and you save; then using a web editing program, such as KompoZer, which replaces Nvu (full version or one from the Portable Apps suite) or SeaMonkey Composer, to add content (text and visuals) to that template in order to create your web page. But that project is described on another web page, not this one.
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One nice aspect of web pages is that you can create them using various web editors or directly coding, as just mentioned; however, those web pages (especially basic web pages without elaborate bells and whistles) are pretty much NOT reliant on the software used to create them, as are documents created using In Design, Publisher, and so on ... an oversimplification, of course.
With recent versions of Microsoft Word,
when you save a document, you can save it as a web page (or html file).
However, all of the formatting doesn't hold, but most of it does. So
you can see what
happens, I've created a document called "Converting a document created
in Microsoft Word to a web page."
Examples ...
I saved that document first as
an rtf file (wordWeb1.rtf ) and then as an
html
file (wordWeb1.htm).
I also saved that document as a doc file (wordWeb1D.doc) and then as an html file (wordWeb1D.htm).
[Web pages can be saved as html or htm extensions. Often, they save as html, unless you specifically save them as htm. So when you try to access a web page, if the htm extension doesn't work, then try html extension. Vice versa.]
Now let's see the differences between an rtf
file (or doc file) and an html one. The document "Converting a document
created in
Microsoft Word to a web page" contains formatting such as a line,
a table, and both a bulleted and numbered list.
For this activity, save the files above
by right-clicking on links and saving to disk or hard drive; then open
the files. Or you can just click on the links above.
You should find that the rtf (or doc) and html files, when open, look pretty much the same.
As my children always asked me, what is the bottom line? Bottom line = especially for teaching, you can create a syllabus, handouts, and other helps for your students in MicroSoft Word and save them as web pages which you make available to your students by publishing on the internet. All depends, of course, on your having access to a server where you can place your files.
Create variety of documents in Microsoft Word and save as web pages. Try ftp'ing them to your space on the ECU personal server; then access them to see what they look like. You can also use existing Word documents that you have. Experiment with documents such as a class syllabus, an advertising flyer, or an informational brochure. Or other types of documents that you are interested in.
The point of these additional activities: determine what formats and imported items such as visuals can be retained satisfactorily using this method of creating a web page.
You can also create web pages by using pages, along with graphics, saved from the internet. You must NOT plagiarize. Save ONLY what is NOT protected by copyright. [Yes, not, not, not applies.] Let's begin by your saving one curriculum syllabus page for either first-year writing OR professional communication, NOT both.
Most browsers (such as Internet
Explorer and Mozilla)
now allow you to save as "Web page, complete" or similar wording. The tricky part ...
When you save the web page, you will save two items
When you revise the page and ftp the ""page" to a server, you must ftp both the page and the folder. Usually, in your ftp software, you can highlight the folder and transfer it. The folder and all files in it will be ftp'd.
However, the syllabus that I want you to save and work with is no longer accessible from that website. Therefore, you need to use the following url to access a MWF syllabus (which you have permission to use) created by a graduate of our tpc program: http://core.ecu.edu/engl/southards/tips/DRwebPages/1100MWF.htm
Try saving that page to use as a template for a syllabus that you might create. This time you save by using "file" from the menu and then "save as ...." function.
Then to view it, ftp it to the personal server. Remember that what seems to be a one-page syllbus consists of the htm/html file plus the folder with graphics. That folder should also contain a cascading style sheet (css file) which supplies format information, such as using a sans serif font for the body text on the page, rather than a serif font such as Times New Roman. [Sans serif fonts normally display better on screen.] If you want, rather than ftping the files to your personal server space, you can open them in a browser, although not all the files will display.
The point of this activity is to show you how to save web pages already "published" on the internet. However, to alter the contents of the saved web page, you need to open the saved page in a web editor such as KompoZer (replaces Nvu) or SeaMonkey Composer. Later after you've worked through this page, you can return and play with the syllabus, if you wish.
These syllabi are verydated, but you have permission to use them as
a template and they
will work for this task. Should you use these syllabi, you definitely
need to bring the content up-to-date. And I do NOT recommend having a
lot of exercises involving writing letters, although many textbooks for
introductory business communication courses especially devote pages to
these type of documents. Remember that ,in corporate busniess
environments, students must write more than business letters.
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