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What is Our Town?
Imagine having access to historical and current information on towns throughout North America with just the click of a button. Imagine the thrill of publishing information on your town for all to see. Just think how exciting learning about local geography, culture, history, natural resources, industry, and economics would be if you were part of creating a resource on towns throughout North America. That's what Our Town is all about.
Our Town is the newest initiative of the Computer Learning
Foundation. It's a resource, developed by students, on towns
throughout North America that will be accessible through the
Foundation's Web site. As part of their classroom and extracurricular
activities, students research information about their community,
develop Web pages, and create a Web site for their town. Students
work with others outside their school--local businesses, community
organizations, government offices--to develop or encourage them to
develop Web pages for their town's Web Site.
Our Town provides students with the opportunity to learn to
communicate on the Internet's World Wide Web, a communication method
of their day. Our Town also provides a demonstration site for your
children's learning and helps make learning come alive and more
relevant. More important, with Our Town, students contribute to the
development of a resource of real value to others. By participating
in Our Town, children learn that what they do and what they have to
say counts--they are the "engines" providing information about their
town to people all over the world.
By participating in Our Town, children learn that what they do and what they have to say counts--they are the "engines" providing information about their town to people all over the world.
Our Town in your community starts with making the decision to
participate and getting a few interested people together to launch
the effort. You don't need to be a technical person--you don't even
need to be connected to the Internet yet. Think of it as similar to
organizing a local newspaper. All you need is a few tools and lots of
kids to do research, collect pictures and graphics, interview people,
and write articles. What's exciting is they already do all of this as
part of their regular classroom activities. The Web site merely
provides them with a place to share their learning and information
for others to see. The students'enthusiasm for this type of project
can be overwhelming, so be prepared!
Despite anything you may have heard, creating Web pages is actually
very easy. First of all, to get started developing a Web site, you
don't need to learn HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language, the format
required by the Web) unless you want to, as there are several
software programs available today that are so easy to use that you'll
be developing Web pages yourself in a flash. Web authoring programs
convert your pages into the required HTML format automatically. If
you know how to use a word processor, you can quickly learn to create
Web pages with these new tools.
Another tool you'll want is a Web browser, so you can see what your
pages will look like to others once you're connected to the Internet
(you'll also use this to view others' Web sites). To help you on your
way, the Computer Learning Foundation has put together everything you
need to start developing your town's Web pages in the
Our Town Web Development Kit. In this kit, you'll
find a guide that is filled with ideas for integrating the creation
of your town's Web site into classroom activities and a CD-ROM with
lots of goodies to help you. On the CD-ROM, you'll find the Our Town
logo, sample Web pages, backgrounds, graphics, an Internet tutorial,
and two Web browsers to choose from--Netscape Navigator 2.0 and
Microsoft Internet Explorer. So you can begin developing Web pages
right away, included is a special Our Town edition of Vividus' Web
Workshop, a Web page authoring program that is so easy to use, even
young children and people new to the world of Web page authoring can
create Web pages for your site. Also included is a 90-day trial
version of Claris Home Page, a Web page development program for users
grade 4 and above. Thanks to Microsoft, also included is The
Technology Road Map, an easy-to-use, 10-step planning tool for
developing a technology plan, and a copy of a wonderful vision piece
and video on The Connected Learning Community.
The first thing you need to do is develop a home page for your
town's Web site. The home page is the first page someone sees when
they visit your town's Web site. Remember to include the Our Town
logo on your home page, so others will know you're part of this
initiative. The logo is in the Our Town Starter Kit or you can
download it from the Computer Learning Foundation's Web site. (To
download the logo, click on the logo at the tope of this page,
holding down the mouse button for a few seconds, then save it to your
computer.) Your home page provides a kind of table of contents for
all the other pages of information you include in your Web site. For
example, your home page might include: Historical Sites &
Information; Geography; Commerce & Industry; Famous People; and
Recreation & Entertainment.
Next, your students and others develop one or more Web pages for each
of the topics you list on your home page. You might decide to have
numerous subtopics under the heading of "Historical Sites &
Information," such as Settling of Our Town, Historical Buildings, The
Great Fire of 1849, and Civil War Battles. If, so, you will want to
have a Web page that is the table of contents for this section and a
separate Web page on each topic, rather than one very long Web page
with everything on it. That way, people can select the specific
subtopic they want to learn about and go to that information
quickly.
Then, you develop "links" between the pages which is very easy to do
with web authoring software. For example, when soneone sees your home
page and they click on the words "Historical Sites &
Information," you want them to go directly to the Web page you set up
with that infomation. To follow our example, you would create a link
between the words "Historical Sites & Information" and the table
of contents page for that section. A link is shown on the screen as
underlined words. Next, you would create links for each of the items
you listed in the section's table of contents page to the Web pages
you developed on each subtopic. These pages don't have to all be on
your computer--they can be on another organization's computer on the
other side of town or the world. You just need to know the Web
address to link to. As different groups in your community work on the
Web site, however, make sure they tell you if they change their
computer address, so you don't inadvertently link one of your Web
pages to a location that no longer exists.
The scope of your town's Web site is limited only by your imagination
and understanding of the types of information of value to others who
will access your site. In addition to providing information of value
to people all over the world, you might also create sections that are
only of interest to local people, such as information on each school
and a calendar of its activities. Let your imagination run free, and
you'll be amazed at the other ideas you'll come up with for your
town's Web site.
To check your work, you'll want to see how other people who access
your site will see your Web pages when they connect to them. You
don't need to be connected to the Internet to do this. Just open a
Web browser; then open your town's home page. Click on all of the
links and make sure the correct Web page appears on your screen.
Different Web browsers can display information differently, so it's
always a good idea to view your pages with more than one Web browser.
This way you make sure your pages look the way you want them to,
regardless of the Web browser the user has.
Once you have your home page and at least some of the additional Web
pages completed, you'll want to make your town's Web site available
for others to access. If your school isn't connected to the Internet
yet, you'll need to establish one computer as a Web site server (a
fancy term for a computer that holds the Web site files), install Web
server software on this computer, and connect it to the Internet. If
your school has networked your computers to a file server, you could
use the same computer as your Web site server and file server.
However, if you do use the same computer, you should consult a
computer security specialist on how to set up what is called a
"firewall." A firewall involves programming your server to prevent
anyone who accesses your Web site from also accessing other files on
your network server.
If your school has difficulty funding the connection to the Internet,
approach a business that is connected, show them what your students
have created, and ask them to help your school get the Web site
connected. They might provide space for your town's Web site on their
server or they might make a donation to help connect your Web site to
the Internet. If you link your town's Web site to local businesses'
Web sites or help them develop Web pages, we feel confident they will
help your school get connected. Furthermore, if your school takes
advantage of NetDay, you may be
connected to the Internet sooner than you think.
As soon as your town's Web site is up and running, make sure to
notify the Computer Learning Foundation, so we can link to your site
for others to visit. Just complete the Our
Town Online Registration form. We will add a link to your town's
Web site on the Foundation's Web site as soon as possible.
Remember, one of the goals of Our Town is for schools, community
organizations and businesses to work collaboratively on your town's
Web site, so reach out to other organizations for ideas and help.
Perhaps businesses will help your school learn more about how to
develop interesting Web pages or perhaps your students will help a
local business that knows nothing about the Internet develop a Web
page about their business. Maybe a local business will agree to
provide a server for your town's Web site or provide space on their
server. If you have several schools in your town, as is true in most
communities, each school might take responsibility for developing and
managing a section of your town's Web site and take entries for that
section from other schools. If you live in a large city, develop a
site for your part of the city (for example, San Francisco has many
areas, such as Pacific Heights, Nob Hill, Mission District, etc.),
and encourage schools in other areas to develop sites for their
areas, so your entire city is properly represented.
You may find when you talk with others that your town's government
offices have already started a Web site. If so, you can create an Our
Town home page and link to their information. Work with different
community groups to develop Web pages on what they're doing and
services they provide, for example, your historical society, humane
society, museums, parks and recreation department, libraries, etc. If
other organizations already have Web sites set up, great! Just create
links to their sites from your town's Web site. Remember, it doesn't
matter if information is housed in multiple locations.
In the beginning, your Web site will focus on being a provider of
information. However, as you and your students learn, you may want to
get fancier and start collecting information as well. You may want to
add email communication or forms. Learning to communicate in this new
medium will continuously provide new challenges for you and your
students. That's half the fun of it. You will undoubtedly also have
students who will take a serious interest in the project's technical
aspects who can take the lead in adding fancy bells and whistles to
your town's Web site over time. Make sure they document what they do,
however, so others that follow will know exactly what they did.
So, take the first step in providing your children with the opportunities Our Town offers by launching Our Town in your community this year. Just imagine the pride your students will feel when people all over the world visit your town on the Web and learn all about it.
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