Web Page For School Keeps Class On Line

Twenty-one Bowdish Junior High School students are typing away in Don Watson’s computer lab.

Some stoically work their way through the touch-typing exercises.

Others sneak peeks at their keyboards. Or revert to a version of hunt and peck. A few fast-fingered kids dart their way into a forbidden field on the computer screens, summoning computer-generated sounds.

Watson warns: “Don’t go there.”

He reminds them of the importance of touch-typing, and threatens to pull powerful programs such as Explorer off some students’ computers, if they don’t shape up.

But it’s early in the school year, and Watson knows that, mostly, these kids are suffering from impatience to get going with what they came to learn: Web page design.

This is the first year Watson has offered the course. But he has no shortage of material to work with. Bowdish Junior High’s own home page, for instance. The page includes a photo of the old, brick Bowdish and the annual report from 1996-97. It’s, yup, a good three years out of date.

Watson asks his students to scan Web pages for Central Valley’s elementary schools. Some are equally outdated. Some are not. The class agrees that University Elementary School’s Web page - complete with galloping unicorns - is the best one they’ve found.

Now, back to Bowdish’s shabby looking home page.“We are going to recreate this,” Watson tells the class. “It’s like taking a working car, tearing it down and putting it back together to see if we can get it to work.”

Watson directs his students to the actual code that created the Bowdish material. It’s called HTML, or HyperText Markup Language.

This is painstaking work. First comes a new vocabulary: The kids learn about tags and script, titles and complimentary titles.

But by the end of the semester, these kids will have built their own Web pages, some of them quite sophisticated, Watson says.

Few students in this class are girls, only five out of about 21. That reflects a national trend, Watson says. He shakes his head, not quite sure how to get the message through to more girls that knowledge of technology will be basic to their lives.

The class includes seventh-, eight- and ninth-graders. Knowing the broad range of computer abilities that he’d find among today’s students, Watson didn’t want to build in a pre-requisite. And sure enough, as he asks the kids to title their own work as “My First Web Page,” a voice pops up from the far end of the room: “What if it’s not my first Web page?” asks Adam Winings, a ninth-grader.

CV High essayist wins

Natalie Shaw, a junior at Central Valley High School, has won statewide honors in a writing competition sponsored by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

The essays were to be on alcohol abuse and traffic safety. Shaw won first place for her essay and $500 for her high school.

Prize-winning schools

Nine Spokane Valley schools have received a total of $9,000 in cash awards this week from the Spokane Valley Mall, at the conclusion of a “Be True to Your School” promotion.

Schools received points each time mall shoppers turned in receipts from mall stores. Nearly 200,000 points were accumulated. First-place schools earned $1,000; second place $600, and third place $400.

East Valley High School scored the highest among high schools; University High School was in second place, and Central Valley High School was third.

Greenacres Junior High School was first among middle schools; North Pines Junior High was second; and Evergreen Junior High was third.

Pasadena Park Elementary School and St. John Vianney Catholic School were first and second, respectively, among elementary schools. Pioneer School was in third place.

The mall and Mountain Dew sponsored the event, said Angela Brewer, mall marketing director.