You
have actually already completed creating the webquest when you
completed te Planning Your Webquest Form. Now all that is left to
do is to make the webpage to hold the webquest you have already
created. To do that, you will use HTML (hyper text markup
language.)
HTML
is the code that tells an Internet browser, like Internet Explorer,
what you webpage should look like. The code is made up off
different words inside brackets called
tags.
For example if you were to create this code: <b> Hi! </>,
your browser would know that it should display the bold word
Hi! on your webpage.
There are many different tags that tell a browser how to display text,
pictures, and even sounds and animations on your webpage, and you
can check some of them out
here.
You can use the tags in any word processing program, like Word, or text
program, like Notepad to create a webpage page, and some people like
that method of creating webpages best.
Other people think typing all those tags is a bore, so they invented
HTML editors which let you design your webpage visually, as you would
with a word processor, rather than typing all the HTML tags.
Netscape Composer is a free HTML editor that is available when you
download
Netscape 7.2.(
NOTE:
Composer is not available with the most recent version of Netscape
8.0) We will be using Composer to create our math webquests
because it is quicker and easier than creating the webpage by writing
HTML code.
The following instructions are adapted from
http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/composer.html
- Open Composer and click "New" on the button bar on the top OR go
to the "file" pull-down menu and choose "new."
- Give your page certain identifying characteristics:
- Go the "format" pull-down menu and choose "page title
and properties."
- Title: In the space called "title," give a short name to
your page. This is what people will see across the very top of the Web
browser when they look at your page, so keep it short and simple. The
title for this page is: "Making a Math Webquest" -- it's what you see
at the top of your screen or the top of your print-out of this site.
(It is not the filename you'll use later to save your
page.) The name should be the same as the title you gave the
webquest on the Planning Your
Webquest Form
- Author: In the space called "author," type in your name.
- Description: In the space called "description," you can
put a brief description. This will show up in some search engines if
they find your page in a web search someday. You can leave it blank if
you prefer.
-
Choosing colors for the background and text
Choose a basic set of colors for background and text. You can go
back and change these later if you change your mind.
- Go to the "format" pull-down menu and choose "page
colors and properties."
- If you do nothing, your page will be set with "default" colors
you see on the right: probably a gray or white background, with black
lettering, blue active links, and red visited links.
- To change any of the colors, click "custom colors." Then click on
the color rectangle to the left of the item you wish to change. You
will get a color palette. Click on the color you want. You will then
see it displayed on the right.
- When you are happy with your color scheme, click "OK" and the
dialogue box will close.
CAUTION: Many Web pages are
unreadable because the text colors don't
show well against the background. Choose
colors that will be very clear and reader-friendly, even on small
monitors and laptops that people looking at your page might be using.
You won't be able to control the precise computer the world uses to
look at your page, so err on the side of clarity. White is becoming the
background of choice for its readability.
CAUTION: Another color problem is using white type on a dark
background. It looks great on the screen. But if somebody wants to
print out your page for reference, it won't print. Why? Because
backgrounds don't print out and all that's left is white type -- which
won't show when printed.
CAUTION: If you believe the news reports, a least a trillion new
people starting using the Web every six minutes. It is safe to
say, though, that many people looking at your page will be novices. It
is recommended that you stick with familiar color schemes, especially
blue for active links and red for visited links, which have become
standard, to make your page user-friendly.
- Entering and formatting text
You are now ready to enter text, just as you would on a
word-processing page. Copy and paste the introduction from your
completed Planning Your
Webquest Form. You will be changing the font for all
your text to Helvetica, Ariel, Change the title also to bold,
large, and left aligned.
You can now try formatting the text -- again, just as you would in
word-processing.
Use your mouse to highlight text you want to format. Then:
- Text size: To change the size of the highlighted text,
lick -a or +a on the lower button bar to increase or decrease the size
of the text.
- Bold type: To put the highlighted text in bold, click the
bold B on the lower row of the button bar.
- Italics: To put the highlighted text in italics, click the
italicized I on the lower row of the button bar.
- Underlining: To underline the highlighted text, click the U
on the lower row of the button bar.
- Alignment: To move the text to flush left or centered, go
to the four buttons on the far right of the lower row of the button
bar, where you can select the alignment (left, center, right,
right-aligned. (If you do nothing, flush left is the default
alignment.)
- Fonts: If you go to the format drop-down menu and click
"font", you will see a list of fonts available. You can choose any of
the fonts there to change your font style.
- Make your title, Task
bold and large
- CAUTION: The person looking at your page on the Internet
will be able to see those fonts ONLY if they are loaded onto that
person's own computer. As Macs and PCs often give different names to
their fonts, the odds are that other people won't see your page in the
fonts you choose. If you design clever visual effects that depend
on an unusual font, they might come out rather strangely on somebody
else's screen. Choosing Helvetica, Ariel is always a safe choice
NOTE: As an alternative to the
button bars, you can also use the
"format" pull-down menu which lists all of the choices above for
formatting.
- Saving Your Page
As you have now entered quite a bit of text and formatting, it would
be a good idea to save your page. You are saving a file, just as you
would save a word-processing file.
- Click the "save" button on the button bar OR use the File
pull-down menu and click "save."
- Save the file with the name of your webquest in a folder (inside
your folder) named :Webquest"
- Your filename should be in all lower-case, with no spaces and no
punctuation.
- This filename will eventually be part of your URL (Uniform
Resource Locator: "web-address") that people will use to find
your page, so select it carefully.
NOTE: Some Web-servers will
recognize file names longer than 8
letters, as well as upper and lower case. But the program you use to
transfer your files onto the server ("publishing your page") might
convert longer filenames into ~ placeholders and/or convert everything
to lower-case. You'll then have to re-name files on your account with
an FTP program. To avoid all this hassle: stay with old-fashioned file
names -- no more than letters and lower-case.
You must have a least one image on
your webpage. These images are actually separate image files that you
will insert into your page.
NOTE: In many word-processing programs, images you insert on a
page are "folded into" that word processing file and you still have
only one file to worry about. In contrast, in HTML, your images always
remain separate files. Your Web page will include directions for
retrieving your image file, but will not "fold in" your image as your
word processing program does. This means that your image files
MUST be lsaved in the same folder that your HTML file of your webquest
lives
Before you can insert an image, you must have an image to
insert. Be sure to use only graphics with a *gif or *jpg
format. To save an image, follow the directions :
- When you see an image you like, put your mouse arrow over the
image and click the right button.
- You will get a pop-up dialogue box with several options.
- One of the options is "save image." Click that.
- It will ask you where you want to save the image. Tell it the
location you are using to save images (the folder where you are saving
your webquest)
- Give the file a name. The dialogue box will include the name that
was assigned to the image by that page's author. You might want to
change the name at this point to something you'll remember. Keep the
same file extension though, as this indicates what type of image file
it is (probably .gif or .jpg). To be safe, stick with an 8-letter,
lower-case name.
- Click here for good sites for free clipart
and animations.
- On the lower button bar, click "numbered list."
- Start typing and your type will appear in a list that looks like
this.
- To turn it off and go back to regular typing, hit "enter" to
start a new line, click the button again, and the feature will be
turned off.
- Choosing number styles for your numbered list:
- Right-click your mouse anywhere in the list.
- You will get a pop-up menu.
- Click "list properties."
- Select the numbering style you want for your list.
- Copying and Pasting the Process Section of Your
Webquest
- Open your completed Planning
Your Webquest Form
- Highlight all of the text in the Process
section box and click on Edit, Copy
or
RIGHT mouse click
- Click under the Task section
of your Webquest
- Click Edit Paste or RIGHT mouse click Paste
- Format the text in Helvetica Ariel, as described above
- Format the title as bold, large,
and left aligned as described above
- If you have more that 4 links, make a 2-column and as many rows as you need table
as described above. All
your links must be
listed in the Process section as well as in the text as you see in this
webquest.
- To add links:
- First, type the words you will want to have highlighted
on your page. For example: A Plus Math
- Highlight those words with your mouse.
- Click "Link" on the
button bar OR go to the "insert"
pull-down menu and click "link."
- You will get a dialogue box with the highlighted words near the
top of the box.
- The cursor will be flashing in the blank line in the middle
where you should type or copy and paste in the URL where you want to
send people. For our example, type the URL for the A Plus Math: http://www.aplusmath.com/
- Click "OK" and the type
you selected will be shown in underlined blue as an "active" link.
CAUTION: Do not type in the underlining yourself with the
underline-format button. The "link" dialogue page will put in the blue
underlining.
CAUTION: If you keep typing after setting up a link, the new
typing might continue to show up in underlined blue, even though you do
not want to make this another link. This appears to be a bug in
Composer. To get around it, type a few words, then highlight the new
text, click "link," make sure everything is blank in the http address
space in the middle, click "OK" and the blue should turn off.
- If you want or need to add a bulleted or numbered list, use the
procedures described above. Any
list you construct must be created in this way rather than manually
typing the numbers, letters or bullets.
- Copying and Pasting the Evaluation Section of
Your
Webquest
- Open your completed Planning
Your Webquest Form
- Highlight all of the text in the Evaluation
section box and click on Edit, Copy
or
RIGHT mouse click
- Click under the Process section
of your Webquest
- Click Edit Paste or RIGHT mouse click Paste
- Format the text in Helvetica Ariel, as described above
- Format the title as bold, large,
and left aligned as described above
- Add links to any rubric or other evaluation tool you create as described above
- Copying and Pasting the Conclusion Section of
Your
Webquest
- Open your completed Planning
Your Webquest Form
- Highlight all of the text in the Conclusion
section box and click on Edit, Copy
or
RIGHT mouse click
- Click under the Evaluation section
of your Webquest
- Click Edit Paste or RIGHT mouse click Paste
- Format the text in Helvetica Ariel, as described above
- Format the title as bold, large,
and left aligned as described above
- Making Named Anchors and Linking
the Navigation Bar to Them
A named anchor is just like a hyperlink -- but instead of sending
people to another Web page, you are sending them to another location on
your page. It's a fast way to move people around, e.g., to
return to the top or to send them quickly to another location on your
page. You
must create 5 named anchors and 5 links in the navigation bar to the
named anchors, one for each of the 5 parts of the webquest:
introduction, task, process, evaluation, and conclusion.
First, you need to set up the named anchor -- the place you want to
send people to.
- Put your cursor in the location where you want the named anchor
-- the place you want to send people to (e.g., the top of the
page).
- Go to the pull-down "insert" menu and click "named anchor."
- You will get a small dialogue box asking you to name the anchor.
Type in something simple, limited to one word only (e.g.:Process).
- Click "OK" and the dialogue box will close.
- You should now see a colored symbol with a picture of an anchor
at the place where you put the named anchor. This will appear only on
your authoring page, not on the page when seen in a browser.
Second, set up the
hyperlink that people will click to go to
the named anchor.
- Highlight the text that will be the active link in the navigation
bar (e.g.: Process).
- Click the "link" button.
- You will get the same dialogue box you got for a regular link.
- Click the down arrow on the right. The named anchor you created
in step one will be listed. Click once on it so it is highlighted.
- Click "OK."
- The text (e.g., Process) is now highlighted as a link to this
named anchor (e.g., Process).
Evaluation
The rubric below will tell what products you are required to complete
and how they will be evaluated. Make sure you check it determine
if you are on target in completing this project.
Making
a Math Webquest Rubric
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have created a Math
Webquest. You have learned how to explain a math topic, as well
as how to construct a webquest and how to create a simple webpage using
Netscape Composer. An you have helped a younger student have fun
leaning about math. They will be your greatest fans because you
are awesome!
