Week 6 Activity

Week 6: Adding interactivity to your web pages | Our YahooGroup Site

Adding a bit of interactivity to your web site
This activity provides a brief overview of four basic ways to add some interactivity to your pages and provides you with links to sites that show you how to add some of them to your site.

• Using hypertext links to help your reader browse your site
  You all know how to do this, and you have all done it on your pages. Now, think about using these links more deliberately and purposefully.
  
  Have a definite purpose in mind for placing a link on a page and make sure you make it clear to the readers why they should click on this link. If you have not already done so, you might want to add a very brief explanation to each link, telling them where they are going and why they are going there.
  
  You can add links on any page on your site, directing the readers to go somewhere to see or do something. For example, you can add a link, telling them to click to another page in your site to find an article related to the page they are reading or to read directions on how to do something.
  
  You can also use links to direct them to pages outside of your site to discover information related to something on your own pages. (Be careful though;. you may lose readers this way. Don't forget to suggest that they come back to your site!)
  
  
• Using e-mail links to invite comments and reactions
  You can also put an e-mail link on each and every page in your site, inviting readers to send you comments.
  
  Each time you use an e-mail link, you should think about why you want it there. For those of us who are publishing student work online, it's important to ask yourself, "How can this e-mail link create responses that will show my students that they have an authentic audience for their writing?"
  
  One way you can do this is to by putting an e-mail link at the end of each piece of student writing or on the cover page of each project, inviting readers to respond to the ideas in the articles or to send their own opinions about what they read.
  
  (Note: We strongly discourage using individual student e-mail addresses. It is better to create a site or project e-mail address. You can then share with the students any messages received. That way you can weed out any inappropriate messages. This is  an important way to protect students' privacy.
  
  Also, keep in mind that e-mail links might bring you unwanted spam or other  unsolicited messages. You can delete them, but they are annoying.)
  
  
• Setting up a guest page on your site
  
  Another way to make your site interactive is to include a guest book, asking readers to 'sign' it (answer questions) to tell you what they like about your site or what they would like to find in your site. You can also ask them who they are (name, country, etc.) and invite them to send comments or suggestions about what they read (student writings) in your magazine.
  
  If you have built a GeoCities site, you can easily create your own guest book. Anne Davis has created a guest book on her PageBuilder demo site on Heroes so that we can see how it works. Take a look at it. Please feel free to take a moment and sign it!
  
  Heroes
  http://geocities.com/annedavis773/Heroes.html
  
  Page builder offers complete instructions for creating a guest book. For those of you who need a little additional help, Anne has also created some easy-to-follow instructions to help you out.
  
  Anne's Directions for Creating a GeoCities Guest Book
  
  Adding forms to gather information and opinions and to create basic surveys about topics in your publication
  Adding forms to your pages allows readers to do many things at your site. They offer your readers a very structured way to respond to your pages because you can specify the kinds of responses you want them to give you. You can ask them them to send general information about themselves so that you get an idea of what kinds of people are attracted to your site. You can ask for comments on specific topics. You can create a simple survey to get their opinions on issues your students are writing about.
  
  In forms, you can ask for specific information. That means using them is more likely to bring you the information you want than using e-mail links which provide no structure for sending responses.
  
  To learn how to add forms to your pages, we suggest you go to a site called Response-O-Matic. Why? Because it's a free service that allows you to add forms to your web pages without doing any programming.
  
  They provide very clear instructions on how to create forms. You specify exactly what kind of form you want and how you want it to appear on your site. They then create the form for you, and all you have to do is add it to your site. Don't worry. There are instructions for doing that as well.
  
  When a visitor clicks on the submit button of your form, Response-O-Matic e-mails you the information and sends the visitor a Thank You page which you have also designed in advance. Again, they walk you through this process.
  
  If you are new to using forms, check out this useful site at:.
  
  Response-O-Matic, Free Form Processor
  http://www.response-o-matic.com/
  

Assignment
Please don't forget to return to the Week 6 page to do the Assignment.