Creating an EFL Web Page

The aim of this session is not to train you to be programmers but to show you how simple it is to put material on the Web. You and your students can publish material which will be seen by others all over the world. Publishing work like this can be highly motivating for students and is tremendously valuable for supporting e-mail project work.

A web page is written in Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML). There are four common ways to create a web page.

1. You can learn HTML code and create your own pages - the time consuming way:

  • A free downloadable HTML writing tutorial

    • http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/download.html
  • Take 10 minutes to learn HTML

    • http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7331/ten_html.html
  • The Bare Bones guide to HTML

    • http://werbach.com/barebones/barebone_table.html

    2. Or you can learn to use a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) HTML editor, e.g.

  • Microsoft Front Page http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/
  • HotDog http://www.sausage.com/
  • CoffeCup http://www.coffeecup.com/

    • 3. In Yahoo! Geocities http://geocities.yahoo.com/ use a Wizard template or PageBuilder (another editor).

    4. Or you can create a document using Microsoft Word and Save As HTML.

    Most teachers (and students) often don’t have the time to learn HTML code or familiarise themselves with a top-end editor. So the quick and dirty way is to use either a simple WYSIWYG editor like PageBuilder or Microsoft Word and convert the file.

    Points to consider when using Word as an HTML editor:
  • HTML does not support all the font styles, sizes and formatting as available in Word.
  • Therefore, when you save a Word document as an HTML page, there is usually some loss or change in format.
  • So it is best to keep the style simple.

    • Hosting your site

  • Once you have created a web page you need a server to host it. The most obvious place is Yahoo! Geocities http://geocities.yahoo.com/ because it’s free and you have already got an e mail account with them.
  • Another alternative is Xoom http://xoom.com/webspace/ but you will need to register for an e mail account with them first. Unfortunately they also send out a lot of spam.
  • Web Site Garage http://www.websitegarage.netscape.com/ is a useful free tool for evaluating, maintaining and improving your web site once you’ve built it.

    • Create your own page

    First, decide what you want to put up on your web page(s). The purpose of this session is to create an EFL pedagogic / didactic web page. Think carefully about what you want learners to get from your pages. We suggest that you create either a Treasure Hunt or WebQuest. They are relatively simple to construct.

    Take a look at my page to see two different types of Treasure Hunt:
    http://www.geocities.com/jason_firestone/treasure.html
    Take a look at some of the links here for some WebQuest examples:
    http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest_collections.htm

    Procedure

    Build your page in Yahoo! Geocities

    Now go to Yahoo! Geocities http://geocities.yahoo.com/home/ and enter your Yahoo! ID and Password.
    (If you didn’t create an account in our previous session then log intoYahoo http://www.yahoo.com/ and create a new account.)
    Then click on:

    Yahoo! PageBuilder
    Education
    Launch PageBuilder

    You will be taken to an example page template Education Homeroom

  • Using the same template format delete the information in the text boxes and insert your own information.
  • Finally Save your page with an appropriate name.

    • Editing your HTML code (cutting and pasting)

    Go back to the Home page and then choose
    File Manager
    Open File Manager
    This will open the list of files that you have stored on the Yahoo ServerBR

    View allows you to see your file.
    To edit the HTML code of one of your pages click in the box next to the file name and then click on Edit.
    You can edit the code manually now.

    Cutting copying and pasting from web pages.

  • Right click on a web page and you get a pop-up menu. Click on View Source, and you will be able to view the HTML code for that page. If you like a feature of the web page you can Cut and Paste the code that you would like to insert in your page by scrolling through the code.
  • Right click on a picture, or graphic on a page and you will get a different pop-up menu. You can save the picture by clicking on Save Picture As.
  • You can also highlight text, pictures and graphics and then Copy and Paste them into Word or other applications.
    • Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

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