{"id":187,"date":"2007-11-06T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T12:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssedro.com\/blog\/?p=187"},"modified":"2007-11-06T12:01:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-06T12:01:00","slug":"the-return-of-the-webmonkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssedro.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/06\/the-return-of-the-webmonkey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Return of the WebMonkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, my web design unit with my fourth and fifth graders went on forever. I started it in Front Page, which is how it had been done for a few years at my school. I was new to Front Page. After working with it with my students for a few weeks I decided that…<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n
  1. It had too much propriety Microsoft stuff in it.<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  2. It was too temperamental.<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  3. The kids weren’t learning much of value.<\/li>\n

    <\/ol>\n

    For me, #3 was the kicker. I felt they weren’t learning much because they were already comfortable users of Microsoft Word, and much of Front Page feels very Word-ish<\/span>. And the parts that don’t feel Word-ish<\/span> are their own strange Front Page thing that won’t help the kids anywhere else in life.<\/p>\n

    And so, I decided to teach them to code. Never mind that I was far from adept at coding, I just dove in.<\/p>\n

    Fortunately, I used a site called Web Monkey<\/a> <\/a>as my starting place with the children. It steps through the basics of web design with irreverence and a blue monkey with a hammer– Who could ask for more?<\/p>\n

    We are using that site again this year, but more as a reference than a read and follow it step-by-step type of thing. Older or more experienced students could do that, but most of my 9-11-year-olds<\/span> find that too daunting at first.<\/p>\n

    Thus far, this has been our sequence…<\/p>\n

    Lesson 1: Intro to HTML<\/span>
    We start with quick look at the idea of HTML, including the concept of tags. They then open Notepad and add the html<\/span> and body<\/span> opening and closing tags, add a few words to the body, and then learn where and how to save it. At this point, a miracle happens (at least in their minds.) Their simple text document now has an Internet Explorer icon and when they double-click it, they can see their web page. Life is Good.<\/p>\n

    Lesson 2: Body Tags<\/span>
    The next week, after learning how to right-click, and the “Open with Notepad” their index.html file, they learn how to expand the body tag so that they can change their pages background color and text color. When I show them the handy chart of the     216 web-safe colors<\/a> with their hexadecimal codes, you’d have thought I was showing them photos of Eden given the reverent “Oohs!” that are heard around the room, soon followed by genuine happy dances of joy as their pages change color.<\/p>\n

    In addition to the bgcolor<\/span> and text<\/span> tags, I teach them the font color<\/span> tag. They oblige by joyfully creating truly garish text color combinations on their pages– we’ll deal with tasteful design after this pure joy has worn off.<\/p>\n

    Next I challenge them to figure out how to change the font tag to change the size of certain words. They leave feeling very clever and talk web design all the way back to their homeroom.
    <\/p>\n

    Lesson 3: Adding Images<\/span>
    The img src<\/span> tag is a real challenge for lots of reasons, including…<\/p>\n