The Busy Educator's Guide To the World Wide Web

THE BUSY EDUCATOR'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB BY MARJAN GLAVAC Author Bio | About Book | Endorsements | marjan@glavac.com | Book Orders | Updates | Home web site directory 11 Great Tips For Making The Most Of Your Time On The Internet
A lot of these tips are simple but effective. If you implement them, you'll save hours of time on line and hours of frustration off line!

1. FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

A lot of my students ask to go on the Internet. My reply to their question is "why?" Often times they don't know why they want to go on line. Unless it's a topical news item where students need an on line newspaper, magazine or up-to-date resource, I tell them to check print resources first i.e. encyclopedias, books. When they've exhausted those sources and have a good idea what their topic is all about, I let them go on line. This saves a teacher a lot of "how do you spell..." and
"where is Europe" type questions.

Adults too aren't off the hook. They too should have some idea of what they want and what they're looking for before going on line.

2. CHECK, DOUBLE CHECK, AND TRIPLE CHECK

Even the best spellers miss a "dot", "underscore", "forward slash", or put upper case on letters when lower case should be used and vice versa in URL (Universal Resource Locator) addresses.

If you're positive the address is spelled correctly and you still get an ERROR 400 or other error message, try shortening up the address e.g. if http://www.glavac.com/mg gives you an error
message, try: <http://www.glavac.com> instead. Or try the address at another time. Sites do go down for routine maintenance. Sometimes they're busy. And sometimes they just go down because they‘re no longer in service.

3. BOOKMARK, BOOKMARK, BOOKMARK

Save time typing favorite site addresses by using the bookmark function in your browser to save them. Once it's bookmarked, just call it up address from your bookmark file instead of typing it in.
This saves a lot of time especially when it's a long address.

Use a notebook to bookmark your favorite sites and e-mail addresses on paper as well. Sometimes it's a lot faster looking up your favorite sites or e-mail addresses using this low tech option than searching through a maze of addresses and e-mails on your computer.

4. YOU DON’T REALLY APPRECIATE SOMETHING UNTIL IT’S GONE

SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! Bookmark files do crash. So do e-mail accounts. Save your bookmarks in another file or on another drive on your computer. For less than 50 cents, save them on a diskette as well. Do the same with your important e-mails. When your bookmarks or your e-mail account crashes, you'll be happy you took a minute to do this.

5. BUT I FORGOT!

One time or another, you're going to need a password or user/nickname to get into an account or into an Internet site. Weeks and months may go by before you decide to use that account or revisit that site. You may have different passwords for other sites as well. Can you remember them all?
The faintest pencil mark is better than the best memory. Write down the site and user /nickname and password in a notebook and put it in a safe place. When the time comes when you need the information, you'll never be locked out of your file or favorite site again!

6. HIDE AND SEEK

Sometimes the best known search engines aren't the most appropriate ones for students and teachers to use. Receiving 50,000 hits for a search query is overwhelming for an elementary student and to a teacher. A resource is only valuable if you can access it. These search engines have handpicked resources geared for educators and students and are user friendly especially to
the beginner:

askjeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com

Education World®
http://www.education-world.com/

Homework Heaven
http://www.homeworkheaven.com/

7. BUT I NEED AN “EXPERT” TO ANSWER A QUESTION FOR ME!

Do you have students or children who ask you questions that you can't answer? Do you need a question to be answered? Instead of spending a lot of time hunting down the answers, try these sites and ask the "experts".

AskERIC
http://ericir.syr.edu/

KidsConnect
http://www.ala.org/ICONN/kidsconn.html

Pitsco's Ask an Expert
http://www.askanexpert.com/askanexpert/index.html

MORE YOU GIVE THE MORE YOU RECEIVE

A great way to save searching the Internet for answers is to belong to a listserv or mailing list of your favorite interests. Every librarian should belong to the LM_NET listserv http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net and every teacher should belong to K-12 OPPS and Hilites http://gsn.org/majordomo http://gsn.org/majordomo Over 90,000 mailing lists can be found on the LISZT site http://www.liszt.com/ These mailing lists have thousands of members and chances are very good that someone on the list can answer your question or concerns.

9. I’M GETTING INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Be warned that popular lists can give you up to 50 e-mail messages or more a day! Save the unsubscribe information that gets e-mailed to you once you join in a separate file and on a disk. If ever you need to unsubsribe or get off the list, this information will come in handy. To save time, check to see if you can receive a digest of mailings once a day or week. Check if there is an archive that you can access instead of receiving the mailings. This will save you hours of reading
messages that you don't need to read.

To really save a lot of time and prevent information overload, unsubscribe from all lists, don’t surf the World Wide Web and stick to e-mail.

10. BUT HOW DO I KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST WITHOUT SURFING?

You can keep up with the latest without being overwhelmed by the information by subscribing to one or two electronic newsletters that will keep you in the know with the latest web sites, technology and gossip. Try Kim Komando's Weekly E-Zine found at http://www.komando.com/ or the Netsurfer Digest found at http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/ TipWorld at http://tipworld.com will let you subscribe to over 80 FREE daily and weekly newsletters.

11. AVOID RUSH HOUR AND TRAFFIC JAMS

The Internet is like a highway with high traffic and congestion. To get the most of your time on the Internet, try connecting early morning or late at night. You'll notice a difference in access speeds that will save you time, frustration and improve your Internet experience. Safety and Netiquette SafeKids.Com Safeteens.Com The Core Rules Of Netiquette The Busy Educator's Guide To The World Wide Web

How To Use The Internet...Real Fast
Sites That Motivate, Engage And Stimulate Students And Educators;
Internet Projects That Really Work
Searching And Finding Information
25 Top Reasons Why Every School Should Have A Web Site

How To Use The Internet...Real Fast Teacher Sites AskERIC Canada's SchoolNet Global School Net Foundation Headbone Teachers Net Kid Sites Cyberkids FreeZone FunBrain Girltech Parent Sites Family.com Parenting Today's Teen Family Education Network Moms Online Straight Talk About School Sites That Motivate, Engage And Stimulate Students And Educators About today's date Bill Kendrick's Online Games Blue Mountain Arts' Electronic Greeting Cards Eyes On Art Inside Art An Art History Game MadSci Net Ask-A-Scientist Trendy Magic Troop 9 Knots - animated! The Yuckiest Site On The Internet Internet Projects That Really Work Global School Net Foundation World Card Scramble Benesse Corporation Language Education Department 1-34, Ochiai Tama-City, Tokyo, Japan Mitsuru Shiota cards1@telemarketing.co.jp Cybersurfari Flat Stanley CHIJ (Canadian Heritage Interactive Journey) Crossing the Empty Quarter Searching And Finding Information askjeeves askjeeves junior Yahooligans 25 Top Reasons Why Every School Should Have A Web Site

1. A web site is a showcase telling people who you are, what you and
              your school have done, written from your point of view. Your mission
              statement, vision statement mottos and school policies are there for all
              to see.

              2. It makes connections with readers in your own school and beyond the
              four walls of the school building to the wider world community. It brings
              the world to your students and your students to the world.

              3. Your site can offer readers an opportunity to provide instant feedback
              on what you've written, what the school has done and hasn't yet done. A
              web site isn't a passive medium. It promotes active, interested and
              willing learners.

              4. Post a map of where your school is located. You can highlight your
              city, state/province and country. Detail instructions can be given so no
              visitor to your school would ever get lost!

              5. It gives students a purpose to write. Instead of writing for themselves,
              their peers and their teacher and then having their work posted in the
              class or in the school, students can now reach a wider world audience.

              6. Authors who read student book reports of their own books can now
              comment directly with their audience. Students quickly find out the need
              for accuracy, clarity and good spelling in their writings!

              7. Parents and separated parents, grandparents and relatives who live a
              distance away, can now stay in touch with the school and see the work
              of their next generation.

              8. Students can see history come alive. A timeline of your school, photos
              of past events, achievements, celebrations can now be made available.
              Students can interview, photograph, research and write about their
              school. With the cost of memory decreasing daily, there is virtually no
              limit to what can be stored on the web site. New staff and students can
              now quickly learn about the school and become a part of its community.

              9. Let others find and connect with you. Once you have a web page,
              magical connections take place! A unit for example on Japan that your
              class has done now brings a reply from a Japanese educator requesting
              pen pals and for students learning English for the first time. Other
              educators read your request for electronic pen pals and offer to match
              up their students with yours. Students begin to write to other students in
              places they never knew existed. The unknown world becomes more
              personalized and students find that this world community is a small,
              fragile and precious one.

              10. Links to sites that are appropriate for staff and students can be
              added to your web pages. This provides a focus for students when they
              are online. Subject based curriculum pages with helpful links are ideal
              for homework and independent study. This saves staff and students time
              from searching for sites.

              11. Elementary and secondary schools can highlight their events by
              adding banners and marquees to their web sites. The community can be
              informed on the latest fundraisers, musical, sporting and academic
              events being held. Web pages help foster collaboration among students,
              teachers, parents and the world wide community.

              12. Electronic portfolios provide a record of students' works. It also gives
              students a digital copy to refer to in upcoming years if they've lost their
              original projects. Students are provided with models to follow, to
              improve upon. Teachers can now quickly and easily refer to former,
              present and future students' achievements online, from school, home or
              anywhere they have access to a computer.

              13. Saves paper. Copies of class and school newspapers, newsletters,
              handouts can be reduced or eliminated by the web site. Students who
              lose or who want extra copies of newspapers now have unlimited copies
              from the web site. Requests for copies of presentation handouts can be
              referred to the web site. Staff too, can find those important memos and
              policies that may have been misplaced or lost, (without the
              embarrassment of asking for them again) quickly on the web site.

              14. Clubs. Parents can now see and read the latest club/ team their child
              has joined, who the teacher is, what the club/team does, when it meets.
              This is an ideal way of fostering links and parental involvement in the
              club/team. Parents have a greater tendency of helping a club/team if they
              know more about it and feel they can contribute in a useful way.

              15. Keep in touch with alumni. Alumni can be kept up to date without
              expensive mass mailings by referring them to the Alumni News section
              of the web site. It reinforces the student-school bond and sense of
              community. Great for keeping students from their elementary school in
              touch with their first "alma mater."

              16. Sharing knowledge. It adds to the sum knowledge of the Internet.
              You're giving something back to the Internet community for others to
              share.

              17. Online Courses. Homebound and hospitalized students can still
              keep up with their studies through courses online. Students can
              complete course requirements at their own pace. Teachers can provide
              links in their online courses that keep up with the latest ground breaking
              research and announcements. There is also great potential here for
              distance education. Students can take courses from teachers and
              experts in remote locations.

              18. Put your yearbook online. Yearbooks have become expensive to
              produce and to buy. Put it online and give every student access to a
              copy. The same came be done for art work. Create a virtual art gallery or
              museum featuring student and staff works of art.

              19. Post student resumes. (One elementary student received an offer
              from a publisher to contribute stories to a kids Internet book. She now
              posts her cartoons on her personal web page to further her goal as a
              cartoonist.) Concerns about privacy can be alleviated through the use of
              first names or a file number and general e-mail address for contact
              information.

20. Live Cam. Connect a live camcorder to your web site showing a live
picture of your school.

21. Virtual Tours. Give an open house 24 hours a day through a virtual
tour of your school.

22. Add a clock to your web site with your local time.

23. Add a guestbook to your web site for readers to comment on your
site.

24. Post music files created by your staff and students and have them
play in the background as people come to your site.

              25. Have fun. Post interactive word searches and crossword puzzles,
              brain teasers and mazes on your web site. Invite students to solve daily,
              weekly or monthly Math word problems or Language Arts riddles created
              by your students. Offer prizes or recognition for successful entries.

Where To Find Help For Creating Your Web
Site

10 Tips to Help You Develop Your Web Page:

              1. Ask the students in your class. If your students don't know how to
              make web pages, they may know someone who does. It may be a
              parent, relative, neighbor.

              2. Ask other students in the school. There may be a number of students
              in grades 6-8 that may already have their own web pages posted on the
              Internet.

3. Post wanted posters in your school and community looking for
volunteers.

4. Send notices home for volunteers in your class and school
newsletters.

              5. Contact your local high school and community college and university
              for volunteers. Most schools have a co-op program or a community
              service component to their program.

6. Ask your computer guru on staff or in a neighboring school or your
computer consultant at the district office for help or leads.

              7. Contact a local Internet provider, your cable company or your phone
              company for volunteers or people who may do it for a discount or free,
              for a school. 8. If you want to learn how to create a web page on your
              own, you can take a course from a computer training institute, a
              community college or university.

              9. Go to your library, bookstore or to an online bookstore and read a
              book on beginners' HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) on creating a
              web page.

Here are some virtual bookstores to browse for books.

alt.bookstore
http://www.altbookstore.com/

Amazon.com
http://amazon.com/

BarnesandNoble.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Book Stacks
http://www.books.com/

Canada's Internet Bookstore
http://www.canadabooks.com/

WordsWorth
http://www.wordsworth.com/

Or read a magazine. Here are some publications that are
available online and will save you time and money:

Byte
http://www.byte.com/

Internet World
http://www.iw.com/

NetGuide
http://www.netguide.com/

The Net
http://www.thenet-usa.com/

              10. Use the Internet! The Internet has a number of unique resources for
              helping anyone with their web page. These sites provide tutorials from
              people and institutions who have shared their expertise with the Internet
              community:

              Case Western Reserve University Cleveland Ohio
              Introduction to HTML
                  http://www.cwru.edu/help/introHTML/toc.html

Maricopa County Community College District, Arizona
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/index.html

              The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
              Beginner's Guide to HTML
                  http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html

How To Make Your Own Web Page
http://members.aol.com/sportfan69/Helpme.html

Crash Course in HTML
http://www.w3-tech.com/crash/

              The following sites allow you to create your web page online. All you
              have to do is have something to say and fill in the blanks. Within
              minutes, depending on your connection, your homepage will be mailed
              back to you while you're still online.

Homepage Builder 2.0
http://www.arachnoid.com/

The Teachers' Net Homepage Maker
http://www.teachers.net/

FREE WEB HOSTING

              The following list provides a small sample of the sites that offer free web
              hosting. Please note that I am not endorsing and/or recommending any
              of the following services.

GeoCities
http://www.geocities.com

This service currently has over 755,000 members in 37 communities.
Storage space for your page(s) is limited to 2 Megs.

Homework Heaven
http://www.homeworkheaven.com

              Homework Heaven will host school sites that have been reserved by
              teachers, school administrators, or other authorized K-12 personnel. To
              reserve a free site for your school, please see the Free School Site
              Initiative FAQ at:
                  http://www.homeworkheaven.com/hosting
              All reservations are on a first-come-first-served-basis.

OneStop
http://home.onestop.net/

              This service hosts web pages for individuals and organizations as well
              as businesses. They offer 2 Megs of storage space and feature an
              online editor to create your pages.

Phrantic's Trailerpark
http://www.phrantic.com

              This service is one of the oldest as it has been "sheltering the 'Net
              homeless" since December, 1994. Your web storage size is limited to 3
              megs.

Tripod
http://www.tripod.com

              This service features a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor
              to create the pages and allows you 2 Megs of storage space on their
              server.

Helpful HTML Software Programs

              There are software programs that will help you and your students create
              their own web pages without knowing HTML. Here are some of the
              popular ones:

HotDog Express
http://www.sausage.com/

Arachnophilia Careware
http://www.arachnoid.com/

WEB Wizard: The Duke of URL
http://www.halcyon.com/artamedia/webwizard/welcome.html

Claris Home Page
http://www.claris.com/products/claris/clarispage/clarispage.html

Microsoft Frontpage
http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/

Netscape Navigator Gold
http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/starter/index.html

PUBLICIZING YOUR WEB PAGE TO THE WORLD

These sites will submit your web page to major search engines. Some of
these are commercial sites, but offer some services for free.

FreeLinks
http://www.freelinks.com/

Submit It
http://free.submit-it.com/

Promote-It!
http://www.ITools.Com/promote-it/

The Central Registry(R)
http://www.centralregistry.com/index.htm

Geocities
http://www.geocities.com/members/info/promote.html

If you want to submit your site to only educational sites, here are some
popular ones:

Classroom Connect
http://www2.classroom.net//DATABASES/CLASSWEB/classAdd.html

Education World
http://www.education-world.com/navigation/add_url_form.html

Web66
http://web66.coled.umn.edu/register/

              The following sites all offer a wide range of resources that might be of
              interest to anyone from the web page rookie to a webmaster. There are
              an enormous number of web page resources available on the web, and
              this limited selection just represents a small sample of what is available.

Builder.com
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Builder/

Hotwired: WebMonkey
http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/webmonkey/

Kathy Shrock's Guide for Educators
http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/index.htm

Robyn's Road to Web Page Builder Resources
http://robynma.simplenet.com/theroad/

Tips For Web Spinners
http://ianos.iesl.forth.gr/~founar/internet/net_tips.html

WebReference.com - The Webmaster's Reference Library
http://www.webreference.com/

Ultimate Web Publisher's Guide
http://www.dezines.com/ultimate/

FOR NEWSGROUPS AND MAILING LISTS

              The Internet Newsgroups (Usenet) provide a great reference site for any
              questions/ problems you experience while setting up your own web site.
              In fact, while the growth of the web has been explosive I tend to spend
              more time perusing the newsgroups for information. The newsgroups
              allow you to follow discussion on specific topics (threads) and to post
              questions. I often post questions to the newsgroups and I often get
              responses to difficult questions within hours of the original post. Most
              newsgroups are not moderated, but some newsgroups, such as the
              Netscape Communicator group or the Microsoft FrontPage 97 group
              are monitored by Netscape/Microsoft "experts" who are very
              knowledgeable.

The following list highlights the web page related Internet newsgroups:

bit.listserv.nettrain - group for anyone involved with Internet training.
Good source for training tips/tricks and web page design ideas.

comp.infosystems.www.announce - group that highlights new services,
programs and web sites.

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.images - group that highlights how to
create/ manipulate graphics for your web site.

              comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html - group that covers the intricacies
              of html. Any html question/problem you come across can probably be
              answered here in a few hours!

              comp.infosystems.www.browsers.ms-windows - this group highlights
              questions/ problems that are related to any Windows web browser.
              Highlights Netscape and Internet Explorer. You have to understand how
              the browser displays you web page before you can really design an
              effective web site!

microsoft.public.publisher - good source of information about Publisher
97. This product lets you easily design interesting web sites.

microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign - another great Microsoft group
dedicated to helping you improve your web page design.

microsoft.public.frontpage.client - a special Microsoft group setup to
help FrontPage 97 users. Often features web design tips/tricks.

              netscape.communicator - Netscape offers this newsgroup as a support
              group for their new version of Netscape Communicator. A great
              Netscape resource and this group is frequented by Netscape
              Champions that are very knowledgeable about Netscape software and
              configuration.

Microsoft's FrontPage site
http://www.Microsoft.com/FrontPage/

An Independent Users Group page
http://www.frontpage97.com/index.htm

Support Area for Microsoft FrontPage 97
http://www.pmpcs.com/support/frontpage.htm

              This site is run by a Microsoft FrontPage MVP, Peter Perchansky, who
              is very knowledgeable about using FrontPage. Also includes
              ways/methods to use FrontPage web bot (robot) components on servers
              that don't use Microsoft extensions. When Peter Perchansky replies to
              questions there's something new to be learned each time he replies to
              even the simplest question.

              This is not an inclusive list as there are new newsgroups sprouting up
              everyday on the net. No matter what software you use to create web
              pages (or even if you code by "hand") you'll find valuable
              information/resources on the internet newsgroups. Take some time and
              explore the newsgroups - I think you'll be happy you did!