Creating Your Own Web Site

At a recent department chairs' meeting, one of the deans showed how useless it is for a new online student to follow his or her default class' link listed on Palomar College Spring 2009 Class Schedule, only to find this web page: http://www.palomar.edu/blackboard/.

It was pointed out that a more helpful link should be to a web page that provides more information about the class and/or the faculty. For example, the Computer Science and Information Systems Dept. has all their class links lead to their student-centered dept. web page: http://csis.palomar.edu/.

It was further pointed out that ideally, all classes in the schedule, not just the online classes, should be linked from there to a more useful and more informative web page, preferably created by the faculty.

For this and other reasons, I think, it makes sense for faculty to try to learn how to create their own web site as part of their 21st-century skill set, if they haven't already done so.

There are software tools, PD workshops, and even free online templates for creating and managing a web page. For example, if you know the basic HTML coding, you can use Notepad to hand-code your web page. If you have Dreamweaver or SharePoint Designer 2007 (formerly known as FrontPage), you can use it as your web page editor.

This coming Thursday, 2/26, Chris Norcross of the Academic Technology Group will facilitate a training workshop in LL-109 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. to introduce you to web site creation and management. You can earn 2 hours of PD for signing up and attending this workshop.

Away from Palomar, on the cyberspace, there are free tools that you can try. For instance, Jottit is an extraordinarily simple and easy way to create a web site. All you need to do is start typing. They don't even ask you to register first. To see an old demo screencast as to how to use Jottit, click here. You can embed objects such as YouTube videos, but note that it is easier to put only one video on one Jottit page. You can keep adding your Jottit pages for other videos you would like to add. Although you cannot just copy and paste pictures directly to a Jottit page, if you know HTML coding, you can get around this snag by just using the code. Here's my example of using Jottit to create a simple three-page site last Nov.

Webon is another one of those easiest free website builders around. Two promising features for us educators are:

1. the ease with which it allows the user to grab images from the Internet and write captions
2. the automatic transformation of the images into a slide show

Just think of the educational uses of these. Your students can showcase their hometown or any appropriate images to drive home an informational piece they have worked on. A teacher can collect cartoons and group them to teach a grammar point in an engaging way. The potential seems limited only by your creativity.

Wix is yet another free website builder. Although it is more sophisticated, it is also very easy to use. It uses Flash technology and a drag-and-drop editor. The final product can look pretty neat.

If you have created a faculty or class website, wouldn't it be great to share it here for the rest of us to enjoy and learn from it?