Speech Communication 498F

Building & Maintaining a Web Page

 

Corinne Weisgerber Office Phone: 863-0127
316 Sparks Bldg., #11 Email: cxw329@psu.edu
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
Shannan Butler
Email: shb117@psu.edu

Optional Text

Ray, S. D., & Ray, E. J. (1998). HTML 4 For Dummies: A quick Reference. NY: IDG Books Worldwide.

Course Objectives

This course is intended to teach you how to build and maintain your own website and to give you the skills to construct a clear, aesthetically pleasing, and audience-centered webpage. My objectives for this course are to help you:

    Plan, organize, develop, and publish your own webpage.
    Gain a working knowledge of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
    Understand the advantages and constraints of web-based publishing.
    Locate resources that might help you in your design and publishing efforts.
    Introduce you to HTML editing programs (such as FrontPage).

Course Policies

Your active presence is an asset to your learning and to the learning of your classmates. Attendance of both classes is mandatory in order to obtain a grade for the course.

Academic integrity is assumed and expected. In other words, plagiarism - the passing off of someone else's work as your own - is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Grades:

Oral Presentation of Website 50%
Evaluation of the Website 50%
Total Possible 100%

GradingScale

95.0-100% = A 75.0-79.9% = C+
90.0-94.9% = A- 70.0-74.9% = C
87.9-89.9% = B+ 60.0-69.9% = D
83.33-87.8% = B Below 59.9% = F
80.0-83.32% = B-

GradedAssignments

1.Final Presentation

During the second class period, you will be presenting the website you have designed for this class. You will have 20-30 minutes to explain and demonstrate your website. During the oral presentation of your website, you should address the following issues:

- what is the rationale behind your website (what will it be used for)

- who is it designed for

- how did you take your audience into consideration while designing your website

- what are its specific design features

- what are some problems you ran into while designing the page and how did you solve them

2. Evaluation of the Webpage

At the end of the second class period, your webpage will be evaluated for its full functionality. This means that:

- all links should work

- all pictures/graphics load

- the entire website is uploaded to the server

- all HTML code works

Tentative Class Schedule

Saturday, 02/24:

8:30-9:00
Introductions, Skills & Needs Assessment

9:00-10:30
Intro to HTML (basic tags, body tag, text formatting)

10:30-10:45
Break

10:45-11:30
Adding images to your website

11:30-12:00
Good & bad webpages (viewing page source)

12:00-1:00
Lunch

1:00-1:30
Creating Links (textlinks & image links)

1:30-2:30
Using Tables in your webpage
Excerise

2:30-3:00
Basic Photoshop

3:00-3:15
Break

3:15-4:00
Uploading your page to the server

4:00-4:30
Basic Frontpage

 

Saturday, 03/03:

8:30-9:30
Presentations

9:30-9:45
Class feedback

9:45-10:45
Graphics & Design Issues

10:45-11:00
Break

11:00-12:00
Advanced HTML (forms, Javascript)

12:00-1:00
Lunch

1:00-4:20
One-on-one work on webpages

4:20-4:30
Student/Teacher Evaluations

 

Online Webdesign Resources

http://www.boogiejack.com - lots of helpful tips for webdesigners

http://www.boogiejack.com/htmlhelp.html - great HTML tutorial both for

beginning and advanced webdesigners

http://www.htmlhelp.com - great HTML tips from the Web Design Group’s website

http://www.dsiegel.com/tips/index.html - contains lots of little tricks that make

webpublishing easier

http://www.dsiegel.com/tips/wonk5/single.html - tip on how to control white space

with a single-pixel GIF

http://www.killersites.com/1-design/ - lots of useful information on how to enhance

your website’s look

http://www.wdvl.com/Quadzilla/Tag_Ref/ref_list.html - HTML tag reference list

http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Tutorials/ - more HTML and graphic tutorials

http://www.pageresource.com/ - various types of resources for webdesigners

http://www.camalott.com/~tspaar/nm-index.html - free backgrounds, buttons, and

other graphics

http://www.angelfire.com/ut/Thunderhead/ - free buttons

http://www.screamdesign.com/entry.html - free images, & tutorials

http://www.buttonmaker.com/ - turn any gif into a button

http://www.imagitek.com/bcs.html - HTML background color selector

http://cambcranebusin00.hypermart.net/cambcrane/17h_backgrounds.htm -

background colors and color options

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/2397/ - HTML color code chart

http://more.bcentral.com/fastcounter/ - add a counter to your webpage

http://www.beseen.com/hitcounter/index.html - more free counters

http://www1.counter.bloke.com/ - free Java hit counter

Free Java Applets:

http://www.homeworlds.com/freesoft/javastff.htm

http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Java_JavaScript/

http://www.javapowered.com/werks.html

http://javaboutique.internet.com/

Free Webpage Hosting:

www.angelfire.com

1.Click on sign-up
2.Fill out the form
3.Choose URL and click create account (write down the URL you chose)

In order to upload your files to the Net you need to use either a program called FTP (Windows users) or Fetch (Mac Users). Enter the following information into the Menu:

Host: ftp.angelfire.com

User ID: [/Angelfire Directory/Angelfire Member Name]

Password: [Angelfire Password]

Directory: /

http://www.wtrt.net/wtrt/software/ftps.html — downloads FTP

http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10207-100-4650186.html - downloads Fetch