June 27, 1997
You Can Do It!
Creating Web Sites
You don't have to be a Net head in order to create a web page, but it helps. ;-)
Lots of schools are getting on line now and from what I have seen during my hours of searching for music articles and activities, many education pages lack pizazz! Granted, mine is average to a little above average but at least you WON'T find any gray backgrounds! I shudder when I think of all those gray backgrounds with no images, (not even one, in many cases) with black text, just giving you the info, in a bland and blah way. Is it any wonder that there many people that think education is *yawn* boring?
Don't get me wrong, I KNOW there are many educators that are exciting and witty teachers, full of creativity and zest for their profession and subject matter, but shouldn't their web pages reflect this?
It's all of those GRAY backgrounds at university (library) sites that spurred me to action in this week's article to show some of the easy techniques readily available to the newbie networking teacher. This is my attempt in showing those of you who are web-homeless how to put together a simple, yet tastefully done web site with something other than your mission statement and a picture of the school.
I did not use my scanner or fancy graphic software (PhotoShop 4.0) for any of this example website but rather used what's already on the Net that was just waiting to be pulled together and organized. And I made this example web site in less than 30 minutes!
Here's what you do:
First, make a list of interesting things to show and tell the world about your school. After you make your list, here are some places you can go to gather the goods to display your school's online image.
If you'd like to experiment with a Home Page Generator, The Hayi Generator is definitely my pick! This is the easiest way to create a homepage, but to me, it's not nearly as gratifying. So if you are in for the challenge, proceed with the links below.
References and Resources
Web Monkey: Teaching Tools is a very clean, cool, neatly packaged place to learn some tricks of the trade.
Beginner's Guide to HTML and Web Page Design
Yes, I know, there are lots of these type of pages and perhaps a lot more that are even better, but I really liked the way this site owner presented herself. She offers hours of her work for free and she does it with style and pizazz!
Other good beginner's guides are BoZine Web Graphics and Jo's Abode.
Icons and Images
Icon Bazaar
Web Promotion with Animated Images
If you want to see what NOT to do then there is this great site, Web Pages that Suck!
Other Helpful Sites
Color Center will help you check to see if your color combinations are good ones.
A Kinder, Gentler Validator is a good site for checking to see if you have unnecessary or incorrect html usage. Be forewarned, it has a GRAY background, sheesh.
Calendar Generator will help you keep your web guests informed of those cool campus projects!
Now that you have enough ideas and help to create a great web site, be creative! Have fun and just say NO! to
Just for fun: Blues Quiz!
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Music 101
Wonderful interactive lessons! Eartraining lessons, guitar chords, and a great links page. This is a fun site!
A&E; TV
Here are resources to help teachers plan classroom discussions and research projects based on A&E;'s shows. Each month, artists and musicians are featured on TV. Lessons are offered for invoking discussion on various topics. Example: Amadeus Mozart
American Music Conference
This site has a feature offering a music "Site of the Month". And for browsing convenience, they offers frames or non-frames compatibility, plus they have a newsletter that you can subscribe to for the lastest in Music Education news.
Philosophy and Music
A truly incredible site! Everytime I visit, I gasp at the amount of links! It's a powerful resource site. Well worth the visit.
MENC Home Page
The Music Educator's National Conference site offers some stories such as: "Musical Miss America Born to Teach", "1997 World's Largest Concert Set", "Letter from President Clinton" Plus many teacher resources.
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Music Education
