Computers in the Classroom

Judy Arzt, Ph.D., Saint Joseph College, CT

jarzt@sjc.edu

Notes for Starting a Website Using Tables

Creating your Homepage Using Word 2007

Open Microsoft Word. Use Office Button, and select, New. From the options offered select Blank Document, and then click on Create.
From the Insert menu, look for Table menu, and select Insert Table. Then enter 2 columns and 18 rows. Click OK. A table will appear on the page with the specified number of columns (2) and rows (17).
Place the cursor in the 1st row, 2nd column. Type the heading for your website, using a phrase such as The Website of …. Insert your name, to replace the ellipsis. You can change the font style, size, and color later to add more interest to your heading. If you would like to center the heading in the cell, select the text and center it, using the centering button, which you can find on the Home menu screen. The cell in the 1st row, 1st column has been left blank so you can insert there later on an icon, symbol of picture that you would like to use to “brand” your site, such as picture of yourself or an image that reflects your disciplinary expertise; insertion of this image can be done later once you have the basic contents of your homepage set up.
Now move your cursor to the 2nd row, 1st column, and type: Reviews. Move your cursor to the 3rd row, 2nd column, and type the name of one of the software programs or websites that you will be evaluating. Now, move the cursor to the 4th row, 2nd column, and type the name of the other software program or website that you will be reviewing.
Place the cursor in the 5th row, 1st column, and type: Lesson Plan. Move the cursor to the 6th row, 2nd column, and type in the name of the software program or website for which you will be writing a plan.
Place the cursor in the 7th row, 1st column, and type PowerPoint. Later you will fill in the 8th row, 2nd column with a name for your PowerPoint display. For now, type in the cell for the 8th row, 2nd column, Coming Soon. Move the cursor to the 9^th row, 2^nd column, and type in again, Coming Soon. Likewise, do the same in the 10^th row, 2^nd column, typing Coming Soon. Place the cursor in the 11^th row of the 2^nd column, and type Suggested Ways to Use PowerPoint.
Place the cursor in the 12th row, 1st column, and type Web Quest Project. In the 13^th row, 2nd column, and type Teacher Directions for Web Quest, and then in the 14^th row, 2^nd column, type Student Directions for Web Quest.
Place the cursor in the 15^th row, 1^st column, and type Recommended Websites. In the 16^th row, 2^nd column, type, Websites for Teachers, and in the 17^th row, 2^nd column type, Websites for Students.
Place the cursor in the 18^th row, and merge cells, by highlighting both columns in this row, and selecting from the Layout Menu, “Merge Cells. Now, select Center (from the Home menu) to center the text to be typed. Type: © (for copyright) and your name. In Word 2007, you will find the copyright symbol under Insert, Symbol, using the Symbol drop-down arrow to find the © symbol. Type your name, and then type in a space, followed by typing the | key, which you find on the keyboard over the enter key and accessed by using the shift key. After you type the |, add a space, and type: last revised and today’s date. Type another space followed by| and another space, and then type email: and your email address. It is customary to keep this information in the bottom row of a web page in Arial, 8 point or 9 point. If you like, change the font style and size now or just leave the font as is. Remember to access the features for changing “Font,” you need to use the Home menu in Word 2007.
To save your homepage, follow these critical directions. Use the Save As feature accessed from the Office Button. On the Save As menu, look for the option, “Save in:” that appears at the top of the screen, and use the drop down box to access the drive for saving your work. It is essential to save all of your files for your Website in one drive, preferable on a portable drive and within one file folder on that drive! Access the drive you will be using by using the “Save in:” drop-down arrow. Once the drive is appearing as the default for saving your file, you must first create the file folder now in which you will save ALL of your website files. You will not put anything else in this folder, including drafts of your work that you create as Word documents. Note that there is a yellow file folder icon on the Save As screen, which is called Create New Folder, as you hover over the button. Select this option. A screen will appear asking you to name the folder. Call the folder: Website. Now you are ready to give a file name to your homepage; you have no choice: this file must be named: Index. If you don’t use this file name, your website will not be accessible. On the Internet, the homepage for all websites must use the term Index. That file name is the universal protocol for launching the opening page of any website. You also must change the “Save as type” drop-down feature—using the drop-down arrow, look for the file type: Web Page (*.htm; *html) and select that file type. (All the web pages you will create must be saved with this file extension!) It is critical that you name your homepage Index and save it on the correct drive in the folder you just created and use the proper file type. If you do not, your site will not upload to the Internet.

Creating Templates for Your Software or Website Reviews and Lesson Plan Files

If Microsoft Word is not opened, open it now. Select from the Office Button menu, New, Blank Document, and Create.
Use Insert, Table, Insert Table, and opt to create a table with 2 columns and 4 rows.
In the 1st row, 2nd column, type your header, such as “The Website of …,” or copy and paste the text you created of this line on your homepage into the cell in this template.
In the 2nd row, 2nd column, type the name of the software program or website you will be reviewing. Consider something to the effect: Software Review of …. If you like, you can merge the two cells in this row, and then center the text. To merge cells, use the Layout menu in Word 2007, and to center use the Home menu.
Go to the 2nd to last row on the page (3^rd row), and merge the cells (see directions above). Put centering on. Use Arial 8 or 9 point as your font. Type a line that looks similar to this one: Homepage | Review of …. | Lesson Plan for …. | PowerPoint of … | Web Quest of … Now go to the last row, and merge cells and put on centering if it is not already on. Type your customary bottom line: @ your name | Last revised: 2/?/09 and enter the appropriate date for today. If you like, you can copy paste this line from your homepage.
Save your file by using Save As, and accessing your website folder where you saved your Index, if that folder is not already showing. (Be sure to access the folder that you made called Website and that already contains your Index. You must save all of your web pages files in this same folder! It is critical to use a filename with no spaces and to keep your file names as short as possible, with no more than 8 characters recommended. (Remember: Never use spaces in naming your web page files!) For example, an appropriate file name for a review of Decision, Decision: The Constitution, might simply be: Constit. For now, you might just elect to call this file: Review1. Note that there is no space between the “w” and the “1.” Remember to use the Save as type: feature for saving the file as a Web Page (*htm;*html). The College computers might default to mht/mhtl; you must look carefully, and be sure to select htm;html if is not selected.
We are now going to use the file you just created to make another file, saving you time later so you don’t have to redo steps 1-6 when creating your files for your second software review and your lesson plan. Change the name of the title in the 2nd row. Type in the name of the second software program or website that you will be evaluating. Now go to Save As, and select the drive and the Website folder that contains your Index and the file with your first review. Type in an appropriate filename for this webpage using the instructions given above for naming web files. For instance, if your second review will be of Asia Inspirer, you can name this web page: Asia. Be sure you select Web Page (*htm;*html) as your file type! You can also elect to use the simple filename: Review2. Once you type in the name, you will now have three files saved in the website folder on the appropriate drive. Congratulations!
Now let’s make the template for your lesson plan. Go to the second row, and replace the text there with the title, Lesson for …. We will save this file on the same drive, in the website folder, with an appropriate one word file name, such as Les_Cons, using the example of the software program, Decision, Decision: the Constitution, as presented above. Note, “Les” will help you remember that the file is a lesson plan, and the first 4 letters of the program will help you remember the name of the software program. You can also elect to call this file simply: Lesson. You now have 4 files in your website folder. Again, be sure you have saved this 4th file using the file type Web Page (*.htm; *html). At this point, you can edit the hyperlinks at the bottom of the pages in other that none of them show the title for the page a viewer would be seeing. For instance, you will not need a hyperlink to the Lesson Plan at the bottom of the web page that is for the Lesson Plan itself.

We will copy and paste the actual text into these three templates once you complete each project. You can copy and paste from your Word files into the appropriate row in each template. For now, we are just creating the blank web page templates into which you will later put your work.

Making Hyperlinks

Return to your homepage (the file named Index), which might already be opened but hidden from displaying on the screen. Look at the bottom of the computer screen to see if you have a file listed there as Index. If so, click on it to bring it to the forefront on the screen. If the file is not opened, open it from the appropriate drive and from the Website folder you created.
Highlight on the Index file (your homepage), the name of the first review. Go to the Insert, and then select Hyperlink button. Look in your drive in the Website folder to find the file named for your first review. Select it from the list, being sure to select the option that does NOT have a yellow file folder or a ~ next to it. You do not want the hyperlink to go to anything put the exact file, which will have an Internet icon next to it, which shows a W for Microsoft and the Internet Globe symbol. The file will show the file extension *htm or *html next to the name. Be very careful throughout the semester when creating hyperlinks to select the correct file from your website folder; caution: students invariably select the wrong file!
Now return to your homepage, which is still open. (If necessary, look for the filename Index at the bottom of the screen if the file is not displayed on main screen.) Make your link to the second review, using the steps outlined here. Return to your homepage and make the link to the software lesson plan.
Resave your Index page. You are all set for now for developing the skeleton for your website. We will copy and paste the reviews and lesson plan into the templates that have been made once the work has been created.
If you like, you can also make the hyperlinks for the text you typed at the bottom of each of your web pages. That is, you can link together the skeleton templates of your reviews and lesson plan. You can also copy and paste links from one file to another if you do not want to keep using the insert hyperlink feature to make new links in each file. (A demo will be provided in class.) Remember to resave your work as your edit files.
Remember to always change the last revised dates on all of your files when you finish an editing session. This is another vital step that students often forget.

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