Some of you already have experience in writing Web pages. Others of you are real novices. So we're going to spend the first segment of this course trying to get everyone up and running at a reasonable basic level.

Your first assignment is going to be to create a simple web page for this course. Initially, it need not contain any mathemtics or graphics or anything fancy -- you'll learn how to add all that later.

Now, I admit, I have not written a lesson on getting started, since lots of those already exist. Instead, I suggest the following:

• Leave these course pages and go to the Yahoo! list of web tutorials. You can get to that via either of the following routes:
  • Go to the Main Yahoo! page and then follow these links:
    • Computers and Internet / WWW (use the WWW right under that entry)
    • Authoring
    • HTML
    • Guides and Tutorials
  • or go directly there by either following this link or (yuck!) typing it in yourself:
    • http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Information_and_Documentation/Data_Formats/HTML/Guides_and_Tutorials/
• Here are some links you'll likely find there, but that I'll repeat here:
  • A Beginner's Guide to HTML (from NCSA)
  • Composing Good HTML (good information)
  • HTML Developer's JumpStation
  • Writing HTML: A Tutorial (written for instructors)
  • CERN style guide (an older guide to the WWW (pre-HTML!) from Tim BL)
• Look at a couple of very simple pages I've created. These are about as basic as you can get. Just use the Save As feature in your browser to make a copy on your own machine, and then open the file with your favorite editor to modify one of them as indicated. Try either:
  • A Wordy but Simple Example
  • A Less Wordy but Slightly Trickier Sample
• If you are really new to this, and encounter any problems, let me know as soon as possible. I'll either help you myself, or find someone else who can spend some time helping you over the beginning hurdles.

• If you are already experienced at this, please let me know and, if lots of people need help, I'll try to set up teams where you can help those with less experience.

Please note that I am going to deliberately withhold some of the course pages for a bit, so folks won't go charging off ahead, leaving others in their wake. Once it looks like everyone is on a solid, if simple footing, then we can all move along some more...

• Briefly describe yourself.
• Briefly describe why you are taking this course.
• Be sure to include all relevant contact information for yourself: email address, telephone, fax, and mailing address. (If you are to be found at different locations at different times of the day please make that clear.)
• Tell us what platform(s) and browser(s) you'll be using during the workshop. (Since different ones can produce different results, if we can identify this on your home page you won't have to report it each time you make a comment about what you are seeing.)
• When it's done, send me email letting me know where to find it. I'll add it to the list of pages of all participants' pages that I'll link into the course materials.
• (As I said in the intro, if you don't have your own web server on which you can save it, let me know and we'll go via an alternative route.)