d. Developing Your Own Knowledge of the Resources

Although he was not familiar with the program, he quite easily worked out how to implement the main things he wanted the pupils to do:

• Lay out pages with text in appropriate colours, fonts and sizes.
• Select suitable background colours.
• Add images.
• Save pages.
• Create hyperlinks.
• Link all pages in a web.
• Check the links.

He made notes on the techniques required as he went along, so that he could then produce a help sheet for pupils - see a pupil's guide to Netscape Composer on www.btinternet.com/~fam.thackray/authoring_home.htm

Questions for Consideration

There seems to be a trend for large software companies to produce cut-down versions of their expensive professional packages for home and educational use. These may have minimal documentation.

• Do you feel that these are useful:
  • for teaching?
  • for home use?

e. Planning the Work of Learners