In the fall of 1999 I was trying to find a better way to share art
lesson plans with other people on this list (I'm soooo visual--I need to
see something to understand it...), AND I was looking for a better way
to share all the genealogy info that I had put together after years of
research. Both of my sons had developed simple websites and they
suggested that I use some of our free webspace to do something similar.
For about the first week I used a free online html program to create a
few pages, but I didn't like the restrictions of the templates. With my
sons' help and a book from the library, I taught myself simple html
coding and approached it that way. Even though I now have access to
html editors and the like, I still prefer to write code, and all 500+
pages of my website have been done that way.
When I decided I was serious about having and maintaining a website, I
registered a domain name and signed up with a hosting company (which I
highly recommend). My site isn't affiliated with or paid for by my
school (which is fine, because I control all the content and can do what
I want with it), but most of the lesson plans and project examples are
largely based on stuff I do in my classroom. Like Woody said, my
students are used to having pictures taken of their "working hands," and
since most of them are boarding students, they love being able to direct
their parents to my site to show them what they're working on.
Because I had the skills, I was the webmaster at my school up until this
year (our technology guy now oversees it), and I've taught beginning
html and web design classes at a summer arts camp for the last several
years, despite the fact that I've never taken a class in it, myself.
