Building Web pages can be fun and easy, or frustrating and difficult depending upon your tools, experience, and preferred styles for formatting typed documents. Web pages are written in HTML, hypertext markup language, to encode them for transmission over the Internet. Interactive Web pages involve scripting with program languages such as Java and ActiveX. Web browser software decodes the HTML and scripts to display the page on the viewer's screen. While HTML coding is not difficult to master for people familiar with programming languages, it is not imperative to learn HTML in order to write Web pages as various tools are available.

Grouped into categories, the links below provide background information on various Web products. After getting an orientation to the terms and products, visit some of the evaluation and comparisons sites.

Web Page Editors

Web editors help create a full range of Web pages, manage the Web site, and come with templates and wizard features for rapid development. These editors usually operate as WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) -- at least in theory. It's always important to view your Web page under construction in a browser to be certain of its ultimate appearance on the Web.

• Adobe PageMill -- used for creating Web Pages
• Adobe PageMill -- independent tutorial for PageMill from Johnson County Community College
• Microsoft FrontPage -- used for creating Web Pages and interfaces with Access for database activities
• FrontPage Tutorial -- independent tutorial for FrontPage from the University of Nevada
• Claris Home Page -- used for creating Web Pages and interfaces with FileMaker Pro for database activities
• Claris Home Page tutorial -- independent tutorial for Home Page software
• Netscape Composer -- packaged with Netscape Communicator, this Web page developer can help with the basic components of building Web pages
• Netscape Web Tools -- provides both templates and wizards to help with page creation

Multi-Media Web Pages

• Animated gifs -- available as shareware or purchased from graphics companies, such as
• RealAudio and RealVideo -- used for designing multimedia presentations for classroom use (and distance learning)
• Authorware -- used for creating interactive multimedia web sites for courses capable of conducting and evaluating student test, produced by Macromedia
• Shockwave -- plug-in software needed on the viewer's computer to enable their browser to interpret Authorware and Director files

Web Courseware

• WebCT -- create a complete course for offering on-line, including on-line tests, created by academics; allows for Web page tracking (by student and by page), access-controlled so students can view only their grades when logged in; some knowledge of html or use of a web page editor required.
• TopClass -- an online course development software with a database foundation permitting Web pages to be dynamically generated and custom-tailored to each student's needs.
• Web Course In a Box -- a comprehensive web delivery software developed by academics. Watch the slides and listen to an audio presentation of Web Course in a Box, as presented at Educom '97 (requires RealAudio)

Web Courseware Comparisons

• The Node: Technologies for Learning is the Web companion to the teleconference "Taking it to the Web: Putting Your Course Online." It compares software used to teach on the Web, including links to many comparative studies, developers' Websites, demonstrations, papers, and reports.
• Information Technology Stories: 10/21/97 presented by The Chronicle of Higher Education as a guide to colleges as they sort through the various tools available for designing Web courses. It provides some background as well as a descriptive analysis of three popular tools.
• Online Educational Delivery Applications: A Web Tool for Comparative Analysis by Bruce Landon of Douglas College, British Columbia is a collaborative effort by the B.C. Standing Committee on Educational Technology, the Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology and the Office of Learning Technologies. It is designed to help educators evaluate and select online delivery software to best fit a teaching need.
• Web-Based Training Information Center, a commercial warehouse of information relating to professional training needs, provides a list of universally applicable resources.