One of the challenges when integrating the Internet into your lessons is having the students quickly and easily get the content you want them to get from the Internet. Many teachers become frustrated as students spend too much time searching or find inappropriate material for the topic of study.
This lesson is going to provide step-by-step directions on how to make a Hotlinks Page for your students to use to get content, you have previewed, from the Internet. The program to use for this lesson is Netscape Communicator. Netscape Communicator is free and has all the features you will need to search the web, bookmark, and create your own classroom Hotlinks page.
This image shows the icons that are on the bottom right corner of the window when Netscape Communicator is open. The icon on the far left is for Netscape Navigator (Browser). The icon on the far right is for Netscape Composer (Web page Editor).
Step 1 - Plan Your Lesson and Find Each Site!
After you have planned your activity and know what you would like the students to find on the Internet, you are ready to put your Web pages onto a Hotlinks page for students to use. While in the Browser, find the exact Web sites you want your students to visit during your unit or lesson. Reduce the size of your browser window so it takes up only 1/2 your computer screen. (You can reduce the size of the window by clicking on the bottom right corner of the window and pulling it.) Leave your browser window open so you can see the Web pages you want to use.
Step 2 - Open your New Composer File!
Under the File menu, go to New, then to Blank Page which will be a Page in Composer. Composer works a lot like a word processing program. Composer is a very friendly program to use. The icons you work with are like a word processor. You can type, change font size, style, color. You can change the alignment, make lists, add images, etc.
Step 3 - Bringing in Your Links!
You should now see your browser window on part of your computer screen and your composer page on the other part of your computer screen. You can move back and forth between the two pages by clicking on them. Once you click on a page, it will move to the front and be the selected page to use.
To bring in your hotlink - Have your browser window in front. There is a bookmark icon next to the URL or Web page address. Make sure you are on the exact page you want your student to go to. Click the bookmark icon next to the URL and drag it over to your composer page and drop. You should see the name of the Web page you are on show up underlined on your composer page.
Step 4 - Adding more links and information! The link is now ready to go and hot on your composer page. Add any other hotlinks for Web pages by clicking the bookmark icon next to the URL and dragging it onto your composer page. Add information for your students on your composer page. What should they find on the Web site? What questions should they answer or ideas should they investigate?
Make sure you save your file as you work. You can work to add explanations, directions of what to do at each Web page, classroom assignment information or whatever else will assist your students in using your Hotlinks Page. After you have set up your page with all information your students need - you're done!
While you are working in composer you cannot click the links and go to the Web pages. After you have saved your composer page, you can click the navigator icon and your composer page will open in a browser window. Now, in a browser window, you can try out your hotlinks. View your page, test it out, and then you can go back into composer to do any editing.
Step 5 - Integrating your Hotlinks page!
Ok, you have it done, now how do the students get to it? Once the students click on the page, it will automatically open Netscape in a Browser (Netscape Navigator). The page itself can be "local" on your machine and the links remain "hot" from being part of your bookmarks collection. You can have the page sitting right on your desktop, in a folder or as the homepage your computers will show when the students open Netscape.
Now you can make Hotlinks Pages for your various topics of study- Olympics, Election, Nutrition- find the Web pages appropriate for your units and projects. In 5 easy steps your students are following your directions and finding content at the locations you selected.
Quick Review-
Step 1 - Plan and find your sites
Step 2 - Open a new composer page
Step 3 - Adding the Hotlinks
Step 4 - Adding links and more information
Step 5 - Integrate your Hotlinks page