History of Science OnlineCourse Info: HSCI 3013 - section 995 - Fall 2008 |
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Web Project Technical Notes
What kind of web project will I make? For their web project, most students will create a small website using free software such as Google Sites, Composer or iWeb. Contact me if you would prefer to create some other kind of web project, such as an enhanced podcast or videocast. Regardless of whether you create a small website or some other form of Internet project, every project must include five required components:
Most students will create a website with five linked pages, one page for each of the above components. If you choose instead to create a video podcast, for example, you would create a podcast with five segments. It is possible to have more than these required components -- for example, you could supplement your web project with an image gallery -- but the five components must be present in a clearly recognizable fashion.
What software will I need? For your web project, most students will create a small website. But don't worry: all the required software is free, and I will provide step-by-step instructions! No prior experience with web creation software is required. If you are already familiar with website software such as Dreamweaver, feel free to use it, but if you are not, remember that web projects will not be graded on the basis of fancy features unavailable in the free software for which I will provide instructions.
| Windows (more powerful) |
Windows or Mac (simplest to use) |
Mac (simple and powerful) |
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Recommended
free software |
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Tutorials |
Apple
iWeb
tutorials |
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How
to create and publish your first pages (Week 2 Internet assignment) |
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How
to prepare and insert images (Week 3 Internet assignment) |
Note that links to the Composer, Google Sites and iWeb tutorials are provided in the navigation bar on the top right of every page in this course website.
Do not attempt an alternative kind of project, such as a podcast, unless you are already familiar with the requisite software (e.g., GarageBand and iMovie). Also, please do not be overambitious about the technical aspects of your web project: the first requirement is that it be doable given your time schedule this semester, not that it be a technical masterpiece! Web projects will be graded on content and soundness, not on the basis of technical sophistication.
Windows or Mac newbies: What is Google Sites?
If you are a tech newbie, Google Sites is probably the best option because it is so easy to use. Pages created with Google Sites will confine you to a fairly limited "web page" template. While they may not be as interesting in appearance to your classmates as pages produced with iWeb or Composer, they meet the technical requirements for this course.
If you are interested in Google Sites, check out their Help Center. You can also watch a short video overview; a slightly longer getting started video; and you can work through an online tutorial.
Here are the Week 2 internet assignment instructions for beginning your website with Google Sites.
Note: GoogleSites only works when you have access to the Internet. If you need to create your website at times when you will not have Internet access, choose iWeb or Composer.
If you use a recent Mac that came with iLife 06 or iLife 08 (free with recent Macs), you will likely find iWeb to be the best option for website creation for this course. iWeb is far easier to use than Composer and produces web pages as elegant as Dreamweaver, far more elegant than either Composer or Google Sites. So if you have iWeb, I recommend using it. (Note: Are you new to the Mac or to Mac OS X? If so, check out these new Mac user resources.)
With iWeb you can create stunning, beautiful websites, blogs and image galleries with drag-and-drop ease. iWeb supports one-click publishing to a MobileMe webspace, if you have it, but it is also possible to use it with your free OU webspace. iWeb is so simple to use that it hardly needs any instructions, but Apple provides some excellent tutorials on these topics you can access from the iWeb link on the top right of any course web page:
Whenever you have a question not answered in these tutorials, I will be glad to provide help at any time (just email me).
Here are the Week 2 internet assignment instructions for beginning your website with iWeb.
Note: Are you new to the Mac or to Mac OS X? If so, check out these new Mac user resources.
Windows users: What is Composer?
Composer is a free download and is recommended for this course for students who use Windows who want to create a more customized and creative website than is possible with Google Sites. It is also available for users of older Macs who do not have iWeb.
Step-by-step tutorials for Composer are available at Kaleidoscope, and I have prepared a summary "Composer cheat sheet" here. Whenever you have a question not covered in these tutorials, I will be glad to provide help at any time (just email me and describe your problem as exactly as you can).
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ is home to SeaMonkey, the open-source project that started with Netscape Navigator and was later called the Mozilla Application Suite. Now it goes by its original code-name, SeaMonkey, but many people still refer to it as Mozilla (e.g., on the Kaleidoscope tutorial website). Whether you call it SeaMonkey or Mozilla doesn't really matter; instructions given for one will work for the other. We will just call it "Composer."
SeaMonkey is actually a combination of integrated applications, including:
You do not have to use the other SeaMonkey components! In fact, if you want to use them, I would recommend downloading them in the standalone versions, which are the latest versions, but for convenience they are combined together in the SeaMonkey application suite. You will only be using the Composer component of SeaMonkey, which is a program specifically for creating and publishing webpages.
Here are the Week 2 internet assignment instructions for beginning your website with Composer.
Must I use Composer or iWeb or Google Sites? You may use a different website editor if you prefer (except for Microsoft Word; see next paragraph!). For example, Dreamweaver is great if you already have it and are familiar with it. However, if you choose to use a different program to complete this assignment, I may not have time to provide much technical assistance. If you are a beginner and will need help, please use either Composer, Google Sites, or iWeb. (See note to experienced designers, below.)
Warning about Microsoft Word: Do NOT use Microsoft Word to write content for any webpage that you publish for this class. Try using Google Docs instead! DO NOT USE WORD FOR WEBPAGES and that means: DO NOT EVEN CUT AND PASTE FROM WORD!!! Word leaves behind many bits of "code" that look terrible on the Internet, and you will lose points if your webpages contain these icky Word traces. Microsoft Word is the worst possible software for webpages ever invented. Even just cutting and pasting from Word will leave behind junk tags that will ruin your webpages. Here is what the junk tags look like:
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->
<>
You will not see these tags when you are editing in Composer, but as soon as someone looks at your page on the web, they will be visible, and they are basically impossible to get rid of. You cannot get rid of the junk tags by editing the page -- you will have to recreate the page from scratch in order to clean it up. So, DO NOT USE WORD for your webpages. Please just use Composer, iWeb, Google Sites or Google Docs to both write and design your webpages. Composer and iWeb have spellcheckers, and there are other easy ways of doing word counts, so there is no need for Word. By the way, Microsoft Word is not required in any way for this class. Because of the risk of passing on macro viruses, I will delete Microsoft Word attachments to emails without reading them, so send me text in the body of an email rather than as an attached Word document.
What is my OU webspace? As an OU student you have free webspace to publish your web pages on either the http://faculty-staff.ou.edu or the http://students.ou.edu server. Accounts are limited to 10 megabytes, which should be enough for your web project in this class. This page provides links to students' web pages, instructions for activating your own web space, and instructions for uploading web pages to your OU web space.
Already using your OU webspace? If you already have a page or website in your OU webspace, just create a link on your home page to the website for this class.
Want to use non-OU webspace? If you publish
to a different web space (e.g. your Cox, Gmail or MobileMe webspace), this is fine.
If you are already experienced at web publishing, this should
not be a problem -- but if you are a beginner and will need help, you need to
use your OU webspace. If you do publish to non-OU webspace, please follow the
filenaming conventions specified in the assignments, putting all your
files for this class into their own directory. Each page of your website needs to be directly linkable. Then, send me an email
to let me know where I can find your pages.
If you get stuck or need to ask for help, please tell me exactly what kind of problem you are having, and what step in the Kaleidoscope Instructions you have reached. If you have received some kind of error message, please tell me exactly what the error message says. If you have published a page that is not working, please send me the complete address of the page. I am always glad to help with computer problems, but I cannot do that unless you give me specific information about the problem you are having. Better yet, send me a screenshot to make what the problem is especially clear!
Experienced web designers: read this!
Web project designs based on frames are not acceptable unless you obtain permission from me first. Here's why: One of the reasons I've given recipe-like criteria is to make it easy for your classmates to give you feedback. So when you are coming up with your website design, please consider not only your creative concept but also how you can best adapt your design to meet your obligation to other students. The importance of enabling others to give you specific feedback for specific pages is crucial, and all of my instructions in future Internet assignments where students will do this assume that the page they are reading has its own url, so that it is directly linkable. Frames are very cumbersome in this regard, because none of the individual pages are directly linkable. So if you're tempted to use frames, don't. Instead use css, or employ a design that mimics frames, where each page is directly linkable. Another issue pertains to accessibility regulations: frames are not accessible to text-only readers. Css is much better.
"Might be dangerous... you go first!" - Marty Feldman, Young Frankenstein
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HSCI 3013. History
of Science to 17th century
Many thanks to Mythology
and Folklore and other online courses developed by Laura Gibbs.
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