Planet X Mobiles
Teacher Lesson Outline

These are the very first web pages of the school year.
The following is an outline of the lesson and the steps
I took to get the students to create their web pages.

Curriculum Focus:
Writing --- Activity was used as an assessment for descriptive writing. Descriptive writing will be our next writing unit and for teaching the editing process on computer.
Reading -- Comprehension activities centered around the story "Earth Mobiles" by Jeanne Willis

Technology Element:
Web Page -- This activity was used to help students build skills with creating web pages. The lessons focused on planning and design of the page, images, fonts, linking pages.

Lesson Steps:

Step 1: Read the book Earth Mobiles by Jeanne Willis. As the students what the vehicles might look like on Professor Xargle's Planet X. Tell the students they will creating their own X Mobiles for Planet X and creating their first web page.

Step 2: Place students in teams of 2.

Step 3: Using your drawing program have students create their X Mobiles. These could also be drawn by hand and scanned it. This usually takes about 3 times on the computers to get a drawing they like.

Step 4: Introduce what a web page is and how it works, and what will go on our XMobile web pages. That the person who creates the web page links one page to another page using what we call a hyperlink.
Tell students creating a web page is as easy as using a word processor. You input information and it comes out on the page. Model for the class what will go on the web page they will create. For this I used a large sheet of paper and drew a plan for my web page. We discussed size of the letters, placement of the letters and colors of the font. We also discussed the importance of saving their pages with 8 letters and no spaces. Here is what my planning sheet looked like:

My X Mobile

by Carolyn and Paula

[Picture will go here]

Description of XMobile

Return to: XMobile Main Page

Copyright 1999

Step 5: Modeling first I showed the students how to create these things on a web page. First I taught them how to put in the title, their names and how to change the the font size and font color. I also showed them how to change their background color. Then I had them save their files.

Step 6: Next time on computers the students learned how to bring in the picture of their XMobile, how to resize and center their picture. Then the students also added a rule on the page.

Notice how I would model first the steps I want the students to do, and then provide the time on computers to do it. I broke the project into little steps. This helps build success and lets them concentrate on the little parts. The following day I would review what we had done to help those that didn't quite get it the first day and then move on to the next steps. I would use pages that were created by the students to review and model the next steps.

Step 7: The students learned how to make links back to the title page of the project and include a copyright. The title page was created by students who had completed their pages first.

Step 8: Last but not least the students did a final edit. Prior to going on the WWW these pages will be printed, assessed, a copy sent home to parents, and final editing changes will be made by the CEC (Chief Editor in Command = the Teacher).