Colonel Gray High School

Web editor programs have become so easy to use that novice users can create excellent sites with many features in a short period of time.  Although some web purists will say that Notepad is the only web page development tool they will use, the reality is that FrontPage and similar tools can produce good results without the necessity of learning HTML.  This is not to say that you should not try to learn HTML if you want to go forward in programming or web development; learning HTML will give you an edge when solving problems or coding more complex pages.  There is a great deal work in the community for competent web site developers, even for simple informational sites.

Here are the broad goals of this module:

My suggestion would be to use a template.  Many sites sell templates on-line.  The best site I have found is located at http://www.rtbwizards.com.  Look for the link to free templates.  I have contacted the owner of Rounds the Bend Wizards and she had granted me permission to use her templates and resources for our classes.  This is where the template for the Colonel Gray site was purchase.  From there, modifications were made and our content was added. 

If you choose to use the template approach, you will get a clean looking site however there are some restrictions on what you can do with the site that you produce from a free template.  Please read the license agreement and terms of use before you start using the template.  Be mindful of copyright rules and please respect the intellectual property of others.  If you like using these templates, you can always purchase one for a future client.

Here are the requirements that your site should meet from a functionality point of view.  These are the minimum requirements.  Your site can contain more features than this but remember that the main goal is to produce a clean looking site with good information, not to use every bell and whistle and cool piece of functionality.  Be mindful of features that might require FrontPage Server Extensions since you cannot guarantee that the host of your site will have FrontPage Server Extensions installed.

Requirements

1. Use of a FrontPage theme or a free template from http://www.rtbwizards.com
2. minimum of 7-9 pages; more if you have lots to say
3. consistent navigation structure that is on every page
4. content which is appropriate and does not contain pictures or names of any students or teachers
5. some use of graphics appropriately sized for the web
6. some use of bulleted lists
7. link to a PDF document that has purpose within your site - Use WordPerfect: File | Publish to PDF
8. 3-5 hyperlinks to external Internet resources
9. 1 mailto link for an e-mail address
10. good file management techniques such as file naming, use of underscores in files such as contact_us.htm
11. correct spelling and grammar
12. proper titles on each page
13. Have fun, ask me lots of questions, and help each other out.  Your peers are a great source of information.

Task 1 - Site Plan

It would be nice to create a site that you might eventually use.  If you have a family member that is looking to have a site developed, now might be the time to build a prototype and get some feedback so that you can take it to the next level and prepare the real thing.

Spend some time creating an outline of your site.  Think about what pages will link to your main page.  How will users access each page within your web?  What information will each page contain?

Task 2 - Project Meeting

Schedule a project meeting between your team members and your teacher to discuss your site plan.  Bring your paper copy of your site map or a printout of your site outline.

Task 3 - FrontPage Basics

Review the document FrontPage basics before you start building your site.  This will give you a good idea on how to get around the application.

Task 4 - Build

Use the resources I have outlined below to learn more about FrontPage and create your site.

Task 5 - Test

Make sure that you test the links in your site and make sure that everything works as planned.

Task 6 - Deploy

I need to check into a few things before we get to this stage.  Stay tuned for more details.

Resources

I will add new resources as I can.  If you know of a good resource, please let me know and I will add it to the list.