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Web Page Construction (HTML) Resources

In this course you will have the option of preparing a personal web page. It should have at least five graphics and three links and display familiarity with basic web page layout principles. (See below for scoring rubric.) To receive full credit for this assignment, this page must be constructed by you manually using an HTML construction tool such as NVu, SeaMonkey, KompoZer, Blue Griffon, etc. No automated web site creation tools (e.g., Google Sites, Magnt, etc.) may be used to receive full credit. An alternate assignment for fewer points using such tools may be substituted with permission of the instructor. Please speak with the instructor about this option if you feel you cannot handle the full assignment.

The following links can help you in your preparation and refinement of your personal web page.
Crucial Resources You Must Read (these are required reading for this course):
How Will My Web Page Be Evaluated?
The following scoring rubric will be used to evaluate the Personal Web Pages developed for this course:

Other Helpful Links to Help You Build Your Site (especially if you're aiming for a site worth a grade higher than 2.0)

Sample SIte From One of Your Classmates: Many students ask, "What does a good student website look like?" Well, here's a very good site made by one of your classmates. It earned a 4.0 grade.

Another Sample Site: This one is both a web page and a learning tool! This student made a website on the main personalities we discuss in this course, therein permitting her to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of these people and their work at the same time she was learning how to make a web page. Great combination!

 Add "Widgets" To Your Web Site: Click here to get the code you'll need to add an education-related news feed to your web site. This one's from EdWeek, but there are many others like this available, including maps, calendars, and other items from Google and Yahoo.

VisualLightBox:  VisualLightBox is a free application that helps you easily generate online photo albums, lightbox gallery with a nice Lightbox-style overlay effect, in a few clicks without writing a single line of code.

Adding Sound to Your Site: Here's a webpage with an easy tip--how to place sounds/music on a web page. You can either set it up to automatically play in the background or permit readers to manually start and stop the sound. This tip comes from Alice Springs School of the Air in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia.

Dipity:  With Dipity, users can create their own timeline, and populate it with photos, video clips, text, and other items. The mission of Dipity is "to organize the web's content by
date and time", and it is well suited for use by journalists, government organizations, teachers, and museums, among others. Visitors will need to create an account to get started, but the basic version remains free. Dipity is compatible with all operating systems.

RockYou:  RockYou allows you to create custom animated slide shows and other presentations that you can place on your web site. It's free and can also be used in conjunction with Facebook and other social media sites. Click here to see an example from one of your peers here at Augsburg.

RSzer: This resource, developed by a husband and wife computer science team from Israel, allows users to "intelligently" re-size photos. What that means is that you can stretch and shrink photos without distorting the main subjects (usually people). It's Flash-based, so it works on any platform.

The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials:  Sometimes, you may find it difficult to look for some of the highest quality Photoshop tutorials using search engines. As most of time, almost all tutorials would label themselves to be good, high quality or even the best photoshop tutorial you can find. When searching through all these tutorials, your time is wasted. In order to save your time, Photoshop Lady has been spending almost a whole year to search for the best Photoshop tutorials for you. Eventually, she suggests The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials. These are selected from their published tutorials.

Finding Free and Cheap Photo Editors for Windows 7:  Microsoft did not entirely abandon its free photo-editing software in Windows 7, but you now do have to take the extra step of downloading it. 

Jalbum is free picture album software compatible with either Mac or Windows. With Jalbum it's easy to create your own photo album site.

JetPhoto is a full-featured freeware application to store, organize, view and share digital photos, as well as publish photo albums onto Web. JetPhoto works with both Mac and Windows PCs. Once a photo album is prepared, only one click is needed to synchronize local album with an online photo album based on JetPhoto Server. JetPhoto Server also enables users to quickly build and customize a searchable full-featured photo website. Finally, JetPhoto also integrates GPS technology to locate and track photos on a geographical map.

The Secret Art of Web Design  This website has a large collection of resources to get you started at whatever level of experience you possess. Topics include how to get started, how to add Javascripts and Java Applets, using tables, preparing photos with Photoshop, and much more. (Thanks to Auggie Luom Seidenkranz for the suggestion.)

Sexy Web Design: Download this PDF file in order to learn many of the basic principles of good web design.
Building A School Web Site: Produced by The Jade Witers Group, this site offers a basic and easy-to-follow guide for teachers and students who want to construct a Website for their school or personal use. Users can choose to read the guide in order or by section, and it covers topics such as a basic introduction to HTML, using a Web editor, standards, bandwidth, search engine placement, and animation. Although the screenshot illustrations are from a Mac, the lessons apply to any platform.
While certainly not as deep or detailed as other guides, the friendly and informal tone of this site will appeal to beginners and young users.

Top 10 Ways to Build a Successful Web Site: Once you've learned how to create your own Web site, review these ten suggestions to make your site a successful one. Whether your Web site is for your family or for seeking your first teaching job, the goal is to create value through depth, avoid hype and let visitors easily locate the value your site provides.

Web Monkey: Billing itself as "the web developer's resource," www.webmonkey.com has searchable libraries of "how-to" tutorials.

Java Applets: You can learn how to put mini-programs (called "applets") on your web pages at Javaworld.com and Java.com.

Javascript.com: Templates and tutorials for placing javascripts (small pieces of computer code that do things like count visitors, place calendars and calculators on your page, etc.) may be found at Javascript.com. (Note: Java and Javascript are two totally different technologies. Knowing one tells you nearly nothing about the other.)

101 Javascript Tricks: This PDF document is for advanced users. It contains a number of guides and tricks to improve your Javascripts and DHTML.

Omeka  Developed by The Center for History and New Media and the Minnesota Historical Society, Omeka is a web platform for publishing exhibitions and collections online. The design of the program is intended to be best utilized by educators, cultural institutions, and those who are just plain enthusiastic about a particular subject. Visitors can download the program and get started after looking over the "How To" area. For those who are curious, "omeka" is a Swahili word meaning "to display or lay out goods or wares". This particular application is compatible with all operating systems.

Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites: This style manual reflects the authors' attempts to apply some of the lessons they've learned in twelve years of multimedia software design, graphic interface design, and book design to the new medium of Web pages and site design. 

Reallybig.com: Styling itself "the largest directory of Web building resources on the Internet," this gateway offers links to over 3,000 resources for Web page developers of all skill levels. Some of the resource categories featured at the site include HTML Editors, HTML Tutorials, Log Analyzers, Hit Counters, Graphics Tools, CGI Scripts, Truetype Fonts, Icons, Site Promotion, and many others. Subsections and individual resources all include annotations of varying length. Users can also subscribe to a monthly newsletter at the site.

Splashup: Splashup is an online photo and image editor that gives users the ability to add multiple layers of depth, manipulate color tones, and also work with 24 different tools. The program is quite easy to use. Visitors won't need to download anything extra to use the program and files can be saved in a variety of file formats. This program is compatible with all operating systems.

Visualize.me: Visualize.me is based in Toronto, and they believe the traditional text resume is "boring, lengthy, and long overdue for a makeover." With that in mind, they have created the Visualize.me application. Visitors can sign up here to create an interactive and graphically exciting version of their resume that is quite novel. First-time visitors should watch the introductory video on the site, and then look over a few of the sample resumes. The tool is quite a find, and this version of the application is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and newer and Mac OS X 10.3 and newer.

Zamzar: The name Zamzar comes from a character in the book "The Metamorphosis", and it is a fitting name as this program is a way to effective transform songs, videos, and so on into different formats. The program is quite seamless, and users need to just select files or URLs to convert, inset them into the form on their website, and select a file type. Zamzar will convert the file and send it to the user's email address. This version is compatible with computers running all operating systems.

Ten Good Deeds in Web Design: An article in Jakob Nielsen's well-respected electronic publication Alertbox suggests ten simple but effective design elements to increase the usability of almost any site. The page also offers links to Nielsen's lists of top-ten mistakes in Web design and Web project management. Anyone maintaining or contemplating the design of a Website should read these short lists.

How the 'Net Works, from Access Magazine
 
From MacWorld Magazine: Create a Barrier-Free Web Site This article from MacWorld magazine reviews the important elements for making your web site accessible for those with vision and hearing impairments. Their suggestions apply to either platform--PC or Mac.

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Main | Course Syllabus | Internet Lessons | Supplementary Readings and Interesting Links
Other Course Documents | Frequently Asked Questions About the Internet | Web Page Construction (HTML) Resources