Our fourth and fifth graders create web sites using FrontPage. The focus of the page varies from class to class. Some teachers want the site to be an eportfolio. Some tie in with a science or social studies unit. Others are open to student choice.
I’m liking how enthusiastic students are about the project. They are busy creating backgrounds in Kidpix and creating logos at FlamingText.com. However, they are already comfortable using Microsoft Word and Powerpoint. They aren’t learning much by creating web sites using FrontPage. It does the coding for them, so at the end of the unit, they really won’t know much about creating a web page.
I’ve been toying with the idea of teaching them to write the pages from scratch. I see a number of benefits in this…
- Being able to create something from nothing is empowering.
- Coding web pages is more constructive, more generative than using a WYSIWYG editor.
- Pages will only be as complex as students learn to make them– this may motivate students to learn on their own, to learn by reading.
- As motivated students learn new skills, they will become experts in the class and other students will come to them for assistance. Although it sounds like that could be destructive to a classroom community, I find it usually has the opposite effect.
- Being able to read and write HTML source code is a transferable skill. Even though I use a tool as easy as Blogger for creating this blog, I still need to be able to read code to add items to the sidebar. Knowing basic HTML tags comes in handy when posting to bulletin boards and forums. It transfers to working with other Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and Moodle.
- It is a programming language of sorts. Our elementary curriculum does not have any programming in it yet.
- Microsoft Office 2007 will not use the proprietary formats we are used to such as .doc or .xls. The new Office applications will save as XML, a mark up language. It isn’t the same as HTML, but from what I read about it, having experience coding HTML will make XML easier to understand. (Makes me think of the days when I used Word Perfect and would use the Reveal Codes command to troubleshoot when something wasn’t working correctly.)
Of course, in this day and age, part of me says it’s daft to code by hand. No one does it. It is too tedious, too easy to mistype something and then spend ages pouring through code to find the error. I’m also turning an easy to teach unit into something much more challenging to teach. I seem to do that often.
I did look at using a combination of blogs and wikis instead of creating web pages. However, that was presenting hurdles that I don’t have time to resolve at the moment. For example, none of the school-friendly wiki platforms work well at my school due to how tightly the computers are locked down and because we only have Internet Explorer which often seems to play poorly with Web 2.0 apps. There are battles worth fighting in there, but I can’t do it all right now.
So what do you think? Do the benefits outweigh the hassles? Is HTML a dying language or a valuable skill for the future? Is it age appropriate for 9- 11 year olds?
In Blogger.com, you can tweak templates and postings with some code if you know it. Perhaps you can set up a blog for the class, and add the kids as contributers, and then show them what a little code can do to a post. Then they can see the wysiwyg element, as well as the code element, and “force” some tweaking (like editing the side bars, adding technorati tags, etc.) It will give them a feel for using code language,and give you an idea of whether or not all really want, need, or even enjoy coding. You may find that some will not be interested at all, while others will want to go totally code.
While I haven’t worked with the age group you are discussing, I have taught basic HTML and web page authoring to 12 year olds. I have a step-by-step tutorial that I have developed for my students and we build a page from scratch in Notepad. We then take their pages and continue to develop them in FrontPage. Many of the students continue to tweak the code manually. I use this as a literacy activity as well as for developing the computer skills.
It makes a huge difference for the students to have more of an understanding of what’s going on behind the scenes. I explain to the students that I don’t have to understand how the engine works in my car, but some understanding helps me to use my car more efficiently. I tell them it is the same thing with any kind of technology.
Working with a web development team for a living I have to wonder the true value of teaching students HTML. I’m not convinced we’re teaching them a skill they’re going to be able to apply in any realistic context with the rapidly changing language space of Java, JSP, ASP, Flex, Ajax, and who knows what else.
Teaching students that browsers are driven by markup languages is similar to the basic grammatical drills of [insert language here] 101. Offering programming tracks for students who show an interest after that is worthwhile, but I would say that the clear majority of students and web contributors will never write HTML code.
But maybe that’s just me since all that BASIC I learned comes in handy so often.
Thank you all. I appreciate your opinions and your experiences. I’ll let you know how it goes.