The following material represents the article that appeared in the official TEL-ED Conference Proceedings:
Creating WEB Home Pages Offline:
Working on an IntRAnet
by
John Wenrich
Key words: Intranet, Internet, homepage, web, networking, technology
Abstract
Although the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have given many people open access to a wealth of outside information, individuals still view the Internet as a separate entity than their own internal networks. By using the same Internet technologies associated with the WWW on an internal network and/or stand-alone computers it is possible to have access to internal documents through your web browser. Now referred to as an "IntRAnet", the open standards of the Internet give administrator's, teachers, and students the chance to develop Homepages without having to be on the Internet directly.
Introduction
Students, Teachers, and administrators can master learning objectives in telecommunications and create Homepages that reside on a local computer which may not be connected to the global Internet. This method allows you to learn HTML programming manually, or with one of the many document creation software programs. You are able to practice your Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) skills off-line before transferring your pages to the World Wide Web. This offline method is an excellent way for students to gain homepage development skills without having to worry about on-line time. With changing student learning objectives this can be a very important activity. In the State of Virginia, starting with the 1996-97 school year, new technology objectives have been developed. Students will need to be able to develop a homepage by the time they finish the 8th grade. Using the method covered in this session will allow a student to meet that learning objective regardless of Internet access. In addition, using Internet technologies on an internal network allows document sharing for the Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX platform.
Developing a Homepage on an Individual Computer
To create and view a web homepage offline on an individual computer, you will need a graphical web browser such as Netscape and a word processor that saves files as a text document. Additionally, you may want to have clip art and images (in either .jpg or .gif format) available to make your homepage visually appealing. Steps for creating a homepage, either through manual coding or by using a homepage development package (such as Claris Home Page Software) can be found in many books available commercially, as well as from online Internet resources.
Once you have your materials ready you can proceed in creating a homepage on an individual computer. As you create the homepage, save it as a text file with a ".html" ending extension. Then, through your web browser, select the choice to open a local file, and select your homepage document. You will see your page displayed through the browser. With this method, you can work on and edit your homepage and view the new results through your browser. Toggle back and forth between the two window's you are working in (word processor and web browser). Each time you add something to the HTML code in the word processor, save the document. From your web browser, click on the reload button to view the updated homepage. Once completed, you can use the homepage from that individual computer, load it onto other computers, and/or transfer it to a server on the Internet for all to see. This allows you to create and store material on an individual computer that students may view through a graphical browser regardless of available access to the Internet.
Working on an internal network - an IntRAnet
Using Internet technology, such as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) on an internet network (i.e.ethernet) allows machines on that network to share documents with Netscape or other graphical browsers just as if the machines were connected to the world wide Internet. With each machine on the network able to share files with the other, you can use your browser software, select open file, and then indicate the particular file on the individual machine desired.
If you are working on a large scale IntRAnet, you may want to create a default homepage that has links to the various documents on the other machines, and then, save that homepage as the default to be opened by each browser. This would eliminate the need to select open file from the browser and make the selection of documents a hot link through your web browser. IntRAnets are receiving a lot of attention from the press these days. The ease with which people are able to access material on the world wide Internet transfers to the job setting when individuals use these same software programs to access material on the in-house network.
Of concern to parents and educators is the openness of material on the Internet. Teachers are finding a wealth of material to use with students and this material should remain available for students. However, in some areas, access to these resources is being questioned due to the equal availability of inappropriate material also found on the Internet. Teachers can use these IntRAnet techniques to help alleviate this problem by going online prior to a lesson and downloading the homepages that will be used in the upcoming lesson. This method is currently being employed by Apple Computer's NetReady Internet Solution. Teachers select the homepages that they wish to use during an upcoming lesson, select how many linked pages they also want available, and then, the software goes out on the Internet and captures, or saves all of those pages onto a local server. When the teacher is ready to use the lesson with their class, they have all of the necessary pages available on their internal server, accessed by the students on the schools internal network. The NetReady solution assures the teacher that the desired material will be available when needed as well as restricts the students to 'Surfing' only to the pages pre-determined by the teacher.
Use of Internet technologies on an internal network is a great way to allow students and teachers to develop skills for accessing material on the world wide Internet. It also provides an avenue for development of web homepages without the need to have an Internet account and be online to use these technologies.
For additional information on this topic and for resources in developing homepages and IntRAnet's, please access: