HTML Websites Created By Middle Schoolers

B

BriMarErn

Hello everybody:

I currently teach technology applications at a middle school in
Houston, Texas. This is my 4th year teaching basic computer literacy.
We learn about what goes on inside the computer as well as some of the
regular software programs like Excel and PowerPoint. The students also
learn about the World Wide Web.

What we tried to do was teach them first how to make a vanilla web
page. We then expanded on this by adding modifications to the code.
Using some free goodies from royalty free websites allowed us to do
some pretty cool things! This includes javascript and sites that
provide free color 'swatches'. The students really enjoyed making these
websites! We're thinking about incorporating Dreamweaver into our
advanced class, only AFTER they went through the HTML segment!

The web pages are located at:

http://www.thericeschool.org/technology/richardson/TheHTMLProject.html

Let me know what you think!

BriMarErn

P.S. PLEASE Forgive me for not updating the About Me section of my
website! (I'm trying to figure out what I want to say. February
2006???? )
 
D

dorayme

"BriMarErn said:
The web pages are located at:

http://www.thericeschool.org/technology/richardson/TheHTMLProject.html
Click to expand...

Love the jazzy musak on the home page, it came on automatically
when I was in a mood to receive a nice surprise. And I understand
the need to be a bit whatever with your young charges...perhaps
you could just point them to the "cool" sites that already use
tons of javascript and flash and whatever and dangle it as a
promise of the things they might get to do one day... but teach
them some really solid stuff about HTML and CSS first, especially
the proper roles of these two things. You will most certainly
cloud the essentials by going in for all the "cool" stuff.

The swaying welcome banner soothed that autistic child in me. But
it will set the mob onto you. Run. Run now.

Seriously, I advise you to hang about here and learn some basic
stuff about HTML and CSS, and the idea of marking up the HTML to
make sense in itself and then to style it.

Did you stick in those hundreds of nbsp;s, or was it Dreamweaver?
 
B

BootNic

BriMarErn said:
news: (e-mail address removed)
Hello everybody:

I currently teach technology applications at a middle school in
Houston, Texas. This is my 4th year teaching basic computer literacy.
We learn about what goes on inside the computer as well as some of
the regular software programs like Excel and PowerPoint. The students
also learn about the World Wide Web.

What we tried to do was teach them first how to make a vanilla web
page. We then expanded on this by adding modifications to the code.
Using some free goodies from royalty free websites allowed us to do
some pretty cool things! This includes javascript and sites that
provide free color 'swatches'. The students really enjoyed making
these websites! We're thinking about incorporating Dreamweaver into
our advanced class, only AFTER they went through the HTML segment!

The web pages are located at:

http://www.thericeschool.org/technology/richardson/TheHTMLProject.html

Let me know what you think!

BriMarErn

P.S. PLEASE Forgive me for not updating the About Me section of my
website! (I'm trying to figure out what I want to say. February
2006???? )
Click to expand...

<title>Untitled Document</title> Make better use of the title tags.

I don't care to see font tags used, much prefer style used.

class="MsoNormal" ??? don't see a MsoNormal style class kind of looks like MS leftover.

<body onload="MM_preloadImages('file:///F|/Dreamweaver Website Stuff for Rice/homered.gif',
'file:///F|/Dreamweaver Website Stuff for Rice/syllabusred.gif',
'file:///F|/Dreamweaver Website Stuff for Rice/computerliteracyred.gif',
'file:///F|/Dreamweaver Website Stuff for Rice/studentworkred.gif',
'file:///F|/Dreamweaver Website Stuff for Rice/aboutmered.gif',
'file:///F|/Dreamweaver Website Stuff for Rice/riceschoolred.gif')">

I don't think this onload is going to do much online. Seems to point to local files.

<p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Looks like this would be better if style was used to create the text-indent

<style type="text/css">
p{
text-indent: 0.5em;
}
</style>

<p>

The first three tables have a taller first row, the last td in each of these rows has the
link wrapped in a paragraph.

There is likely a much better way to display the links other then several tables.

I did not look at any of the students pages, it would not be fair to the students after
looking at the main page.
 
B

BriMarErn

My part was done in Dreamweaver. The main Rice School website was
completely revamped in Dreamweaver after initially being done in Front
Page. Go to:

http://thericeschool.org/

( Even with the bad rap, the site done in Front Page was still very
well done. The person runnng that one left for another teaching
position. Good guy!)

I'm planning on revamping my site as well.

Yes, all the kids in my class did all of their web pages in Notepad.
The art galleries in each of their sites were done in simple Paint,
then loaded with the <img...> tag.

Any other questions or comments would be greatly appreciated!

PS (again) The cool thing about being a middle school student is that
they can really explore with all the flashy eye candy stuff! Yes, I do
teach them the fact that in a 'real life' web site, less is more.
However, they're learning a skill that very few middle schoolers, let
alone high schoolers, are learning!

BriMarErn
 
D

Dan

BriMarErn said:
Any other questions or comments would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

Given that they're written by kids, I'm not going to dig into them
critically as I might to sites created by adults, especially
self-proclaimed web professionals. However, one thing to note is that
the ones I looked at all seem to break their paragraphs using <br><br>;
haven't you taught your students the <p> element?
 
B

BriMarErn

Thanks for the question, Dan!

When I intially started this project, I tried to look at things from
the prospective of a middle school student. Believe it or not, I had to
come up with some terminology that's not normally associated with HTML
so as to break things down in a "Sesame Street" level manner that
everybody in the class could understand!

For example < > and </ > with anything in between became known as
'sandwiches' . Anything like an <img...> or <br> tag became known as a
'stand-alone tag'. (Since it didn't have a corresponding </ >. The
omission of the <p> tag was a slight mistake on my part due to
over-emphasizing a single line break.(Bad teacher! Bad teacher!) Yes,
the <p> tag will be incorporated in this year's lesson!
 
P

Paul Watt

BriMarErn said:
My part was done in Dreamweaver. The main Rice School website was
completely revamped in Dreamweaver after initially being done in Front
Page. Go to:

http://thericeschool.org/
Click to expand...

Hi,
I took a little meander around your school site and whilst the web designer
in me is screaming, I'm kinda charmed by its naivety! Could do with looking
at it with regards to consistancy (I didnt look at the code so I cant
comment).
Good luck if theres going to be a V 2.0

--
Cheers

Paul
le singe est dans l'arbre
http://www.paulwatt.info
 

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