Version 1.3

by Bernie Dodge
Educational Technology Department
San Diego State University

Presented at the California School Library Association Conference
San Diego, November 9, 1995

Introduction

This session will be based on on-line demonstrations and in-the-room discussions. This document serves as an outline and menu of the things we'll be looking at and talking about. After the conference, you'll be able to review this document and follow its links by pointing your browser at

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/GrowWeb.html

Growing a webserver proceeds through three distinct stages:

  1. READY: Getting familiar with the Web and with HTML
  2. SET: Setting up a server or getting access to one
  3. GROW: Building a community of webpublishers

READY: Getting Familiar with the Web and with HTML

The first stage in the process is to cruise the Web and see what's out there. You'll need a WWW Browser, and the best one at the moment is NetScape, which is free for use in educational institutions. It's available on all the on-line services, and from the Netscape Home Page. You can also browse the web with Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online, eWorld, and Microsoft Network.

The number of items available on the World Wide Web is increasing by about 25% per month. The quality is steadily increasing as well. There are many institutions who have taken on the task of identifying useful resources for educators. A particularly good one is the Classroom Connect page. At SDSU, we've compiled a Catalog of Catalogs of Web Sites for Teachers and broken it down by content area.

In order to create a document like the one you're viewing right now, you need to learn about HTML, the HyperText Markup Language. It isn't hard to learn at all, especially if you pick up Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a Week by Laura Lemay. ($25, Sams Publishing, ISBN 0-672-30667-0)

Another excellent resource for learning HTML is the Web 66 Internet Server Cookbook. It contains recipes for putting pictures and sounds in your pages, serving downloadable files, and maintaining a server from a distance.

SET: Setting Up or Getting a Server

There are three possibilities as you move to this stage of the game:
  1. Set up a server for internal use that isn't connected to the net
  2. Get space on someone else's server
  3. Create your own server
If you take options 1 or 3, the software you'll need is called MacHTTP. MacHTTP can be run on any Mac that runs System 7. MacHTTP version 2.2 can be downloaded free and the price to register it for educational institutions is $75. An enhanced version, WebStar, costs $295.

Setting up an In-House Server

Yes, you can set up a webserver without being connected to the internet. This could be useful as a temporary stage while you wait for your information superhighway ship to come in. An in-house >server could be a vehicle for student publications, school and course information, and selected webpages that you capture from other places. Grant Neufeld has written the documentation on how to do it which you can find at http://arpp1.carleton.ca/machttp/doc/setup/nonetwork.html.

No matter where your server is located, you'll need to develop pages in HTML to organize your information. Jodi Reed, one of the SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellows, has created a set of HyperCard tools called School Web Maker that allows a school to create their own suite of web pages. It's available at the SDSU Education First Applications page at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/edfirst/edfirst.html.

Getting Space on Someone Else's Server

If you'd like your website to be accessible to anyone out there in cyberspace, you'll need a home on the internet. The SchoolWeb Exploration Project is located at http://edweb.cnidr.org:90/swep.html. This project describes efforts by institutions that are already connected to the Net to sponsor schools by helping them to create web pages and giving them server space. In addition, a listserve has been set up for those wanting to learn more about the project. To join the list, write a message saying "subscribe swep-l firstname lastname" and send it to listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu.


Setting up Your Own Server

To operate your own server, you'll need a connection to the internet by way of your school district, a university or a commercial internet provider. You'll also need to fully understand MacHTTP and additional tools you can use to extend it. The MacHTTP Frequently Asked Questions file http://arpp1.carleton.ca/machttp/doc/ is a valuable source of information and pointers to other sources of information related to MacHTTP.

Another excellent resource for setting up your own website is Jon Wiederspan's Macintosh WWW Development Guide found at http://www.uwtc.washington.edu/Computing/WWW/Mac/Directory.html. It contains pointers to the latest versions of client and browser software, HTML editors, translators, graphics and more.


GROW: Building a Community of Webpublishers

OK, you've gotten past the mechanical parts of the process. The final stage is more about people than it is about hardware. There are at least three separate aspects to growing your website.
  1. Giving your local people ownership
  2. Involving local people as content creators
  3. Getting distant people as audience

One way to make the people in your own community feel some ownership of your website is to help them create their own personal home page. HomeMaker is a HyperCard stack that prompts the user through the process of describing their background and interests, and then creates an HTML file that can be posted on the the webserver. It's available on the SDSU EdWeb server (http://edweb.sdsu.edu/pub/HomeMaker.hqx) and on America On-Line.

One of the next phases in growing your server is to recruit additional information creators. Right now, it takes a bit of skill to put a web page together, and you can barter some training for some help. I sent an announcement via e-mail to all the graduate students in my department offering to train them in webpublishing in return for ten hours of community service and was overwhelmed by the response.

Another excellent way to grow your website is to be generous with it. Once you have developed a cadre of volunteer HTML hackers, build some bridges to those outside your immediate community by giving them a home on your server. At SDSU, we're providing space for the San Diego Historical Society, O'Farrell Community School, the International Society for Performance Improvement, and (soon) the San Diego Peace Corps Association. We anticipate that deepening our relationships with these institutions will lead to other educational opportunities for our students in the future.

The third aspect of growing your web is to make others aware of it. It's gratifying to receive e-mail from someone who's found your site and has something good to say about it. Children will take webpublishing even more seriously if they know that there's a distant, unknown audience for their work. To announce your school website to the rest of the K-12 world, get yourself listed on the Web66 WWW School Registry page.

The Web is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to educational technology. Creating your own web site makes it possible for you to organize a variety of webquests and student publication activities. Any school with an extra computer can do it... and should!

Feedback is very welcome. Write to bdodge@mail.sdsu.edu. Last updated November 8, 1995.