Dreamweaver

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Permalink Reply by David Kapuler on December 6, 2007 at 9:53am

I haven't done this but know at the jr high level they start out w/ NVU which would be great lead up to using Dreamweaver, you can check it out here http://www.nvu.com/

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Permalink Reply by Jim Burke on December 6, 2007 at 10:03am

I'm a big fan of Nvu . . . and now there is an improvement of Nvu in Kompozer.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Miller on December 6, 2007 at 12:44pm

I teach Dreamweaver to 8th graders. I made my own tutorial, then have them make their own web pages. I also teach Flash and Fireworks also. Check out my tutorials and the student web pages.

Tutorials: http://www.rcas.org/swms/computer/epub/electronicpub.html

Student web pages: http://www.rcas.org/swms/Students.html

The students like this class, and it challenges them.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on December 7, 2007 at 6:34am

I haven't done this, but I have used Dreamweaver for 5+ years. Not sure how long you have, but to me the key is ( as with most things) the basics. Walk before you sprint.

Dreamweaver is designed to help you create pages using CSS. The W3Schools have a wonderful set of interactive CSS tutorials. Among them is a sandbox where you can modify CSS and watch the results change. Learning CSS will save a lot of frustration with Dreamweaver, and put them on the road to doing things the right way.

Those examples also show the HTML for each simple page, so they'll get used to looking at the essential, but not always interesting head, body, and style tags.

Once a basic CSS/HTML set was mastered, I'd break out the Dreamweaver. Set the view (View menu up top) to Code and Design. They'll see that same familialr set up.

Then you can begin to introduce the Dreamweaver command set and work the various buttons. In fact, you can just copy an example from the CSS tutorial site, paste it in to the code window*, and woohee a push of the refresh button shows you the same layout..

Depending on their level, some may find the code view a bit uneasy, and prefer to jump to the pure visual view, but in my experience Dreamweaver isn't always very friendly in pure visual view, and it'll be more frustrating without the css.

Finally, once they have the CSS and the Buttons down, and can create elements, I'd give them a page with a suitable design to try to replicate.

*(Remember to leave the page header lines above the first tag).

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Permalink Reply by Patrick L on December 7, 2007 at 8:44am

Terrific advice so far, just to add....

I taught Dreamweaver & Fireworks to 7th & 8th graders- the "taking small steps" advice is important. Start with formating text, page properties, then making links, then inserting pictures, then other pages. Emphasize folder management. The hardest part is the "site definition" component, especially since it's often the first thing that has to be done. Watching you do the steps is important for the kids.

Teaching CSS may be tricky- though the advanced kids will definitely catch on once they "see" it in action and can compare it with a CSS "less" page. Again, moving slowly from formatting text, then to page structure is important. I only did the CSS stuff with the kids who were interested, didn't try it with the general classes.. Here are some of the activities I used for CSS: http://www.e-ledesma.com/dreamweaver.htm - some practice files and activities for the kids to mess around with.....

You'll have fun!

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Permalink Reply by genomands on December 7, 2007 at 10:57am

So far - thanks to the five of you who have posted. This is a lot to digest. It is great. I am familiar with some of your terminology, but need to re-look at some of my material. I will have to study some of your suggestions and web pages over the next week. Dan (PS - I already teach Word, Powerpoint, Publisher, Excel - this is just one more thing to add to my list).

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on December 8, 2007 at 10:14pm

I've struggled with "real work" over the last few years. Some of the best projects I've done have used community resources and primary source documents. (Since so many of the primary sources are in the public domain you can use images and other sources without tracking down citations.) How about a community project? Research the history of your town or school district and do a website. Or do an oral histories project with elderly member of your community or students's families, Here are some of the projects we did that ended up with websites. The kids that did these projects are 5th and 6th graders, I'm sure the older kids could do much fancier websites. Guardians of Freedom (2001) and CSI:Cemetery Scene Investigation (Spring 2007) and NKC Walking Tour (Fall 2007)

The best (fanciest) websites I've ever seen done by high school kids are the winners of the Thinkquest contest over the years. Not only are they very sophisticated in design and coding they are full of interesting and rich content. One neat aspect of that contest is that the teams have kids from several different schools around the world. Here is a second place winner from 2007. This 1996 winner was the first one I ever saw and I was blown away, of course this was 10 years ago!!

Gary from this discussion shared this
Student web pages: http://www.rcas.org/swms/Students.html

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Craig on December 11, 2007 at 12:07am

Hi Dan,

The biggest headaches that I have experienced with students using both FrontPage and Dreamweaver is mysterious disappearing/changed content. This happens for any number of reasons, but it can be devastating to developers (myself , included).

Therefore, one of your first lessons should be daily backups of development (NOT just on the server). Have them take all of their files and back them up in a different folder. Keep multiple days of backups just in case something was inadvertently changed and they don't notice it right away. No use in having a backup of corrupted data.

Good luck.
Dan (too)

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