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Web Publishing Tools for Kids?

Posted by Cliff on from the an-introduction-to-the-web dept.

fuzbuh asks: "I want to help an 11 year old who wants to publish a site for kids, and am thinking about what tool(s) to provide for her. Her experience is limited to email, web browsing (on kid sites), and computer games. This, as a first step for her, needs to be easy, and more focused on content than form. What do people suggest for tools for her? A web based page builder (which one)? A WYSIWYG editor (may be a bit complex). A 'Wiki' where only she can edit? Maybe I should just start her with a blog to post her ideas and stories. What have others done? Any ideas and/or suggestions? Thanks in advance!"

9 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Time constraints? by Acidic_Diarrhea · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What type of time do you have to help this child in the learning process? You note that a WYSIWYG editor may be a bit too complicated for the child but I think that if you have some time to spend, the child would easily adapt to using that. It would also challenge the child more than simply saying, "Oh, here's a free blogging site. Type into the box and hit 'Submit'."

    It's good for kids to be allowed to explore and learn on their own but I think giving them a step up (into using a simple editor) and then allowing the child to explore on his or her own, has added benefits of requiring a bit more thought.

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  2. Standards compliant (x)HTML by GigsVT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's no reason an 11 year old can't learn to write standards compliant HTML or XHTML. It's not a complicated language. Just make sure to show her how to validate her pages.

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    1. Re:Standards compliant (x)HTML by Glonoinha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yea, just teach her to do it in notepad.
      Want (or feel that she needs) WYSIWYG? Get a box of crayons. The world needs a bunch of things, but more gimp drag-n-drop web'masters isn't one of them.

      No offense intended. Heck turn her loose with an HTML book and notepad - she may amaze you (11 year old children do that.)

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  3. Really.... by hawkbug · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate programs that write crappy pages for you. I have the opinion that if everybody who wanted to create a webpage simply learned a little html before doing so, the web would be a better place. It doesn't have to be flashy - just learn the basics, like body, table, font, p, br, etc. A little knowledge goes a long way. I'm sure even an 11 yr old could understand basic concepts like those, probably even quicker than most adults. You could "borrow" a page layout from some other site, and set up templates for them to edit. It could fun, while at the same time I don't think it hurts to challenge a kid.

  4. When I was 11... by sailracer6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is, 8 years ago, I had my own website. I taught myself basic HTML and wrote it up in Notepad. So did all my friends, as we had all just gotten our netconnections for the first time and were quite excited about it. I had a Star Wars page. This was long enough ago that Theforce.net didn't really exist yet, and it was still possible for me to get into the upper listings at Altavista.

    Anyway, no reason that can't still be done. Best way to learn about such basics as HTML, UNIX, and FTP. Just give them a UNIX account with a few privileges -- that's what my ISP gave me back in the day.

  5. Helping an 11 yr old. by idommp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The real question here is: how comfortable are you with the technology you're introducing to this child? Can you stay far enough ahead of a young inquisitive mind to stear her in the right direction? If she suddenly wants to know all about cascading style sheets are you going to freek? Do PHP and SQL cause you to loose sleep at night?

    If you're totally comfortable in this arena, then, by all means, introduce her to the nuts and bolts of web programming. If not, then point her in the direction of one of the "free" page hosts that provide a template driven page layout program.

    Education, in any field of endevor, is simply a matter of providing a safe environment in which the recources exist for discovering on their own what you wanted the student to learn in the first place.

  6. Frontpage by a.koepke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I will most likely get modded down to the basement for posting this but what about Frontpage.

    You get it for free (well you get Express for free) and its so easy to use even a kid could figure it out. I do not think we should expect a little kids website to be perfectly valid HTML. Using Frontpage will make sure its not....

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  7. w3schools. by jonadab · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Send her here. Really. I taught myself HTML in my spare moments during a weekend using a much worse tutorial than that, and I was in college at the time. Kids learn faster. In three hours she'll have the HTML figured out and be looking for clip-art.

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  8. Webmonkey for Kids by hether · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd point her towards Webmonkey for Kids. They have some really neat stuff to get her started.

    http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/kids/

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