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Contents
Quick
Start: Post an Assignment --- Fast!
Introduction to Homework Hero
The Importance of Teacher Support
Updating the Assignment Page
How to Find the Update Form
Custom HTML
Example
1. Bold Text
Example 2. Font Color
Example 3. Combine Font
Changes
Example 4. Favorite Links
Example 5. Adding Graphics
Example 6. Marquee and Sounds (Mr.
Stamey)
Example 7. Hit Counters
The Name Field
The Last Name Field
The E-mail Field
School Name Field
URL to Your Home Page
URL to a Web Image
Announcement Headline
Your Special Announcements
Course Name
Assignment
Keywords
Password
Lost and Forgotten Passwords
Reminder Service
Using Homework Hero Effectively
Quit Homework Hero
Introduction to
Homework Hero
Homework Hero provides a
simple way for you to post homework assignments for your classes to a
Web page. Once your school has signed up, you will be given a user name
and a password that will permit you to access a form where you can post
assignments. To get to the assignment form from the Homework Hero home
page, click on the "Assignments" button, choose your school by
clicking in the list, then select "Update Assignments" under
the "Teachers Only" heading. After entering your user name and
password, you can change items in the form. You probably will not need
any help, but some hints and suggestions are provided below. Top
of Page.
The Importance of
Teacher Support
Teachers will make all of the
difference if Homework Hero is to provide a useful service. If only 25%
of your students use Homework Hero you will be providing a very useful
service to them. But if you update your assignments on schedule only 25%
of the time, you may end up helping no one. If teachers do
not list assignments in a regular and timely fashion, students and
parents will quickly stop checking. Remember, teachers must make
the first move, and stick with it. It takes only a few minutes on a
daily or weekly basis. If the burden is too great, think about letting a
responsible student or parent do this for you! Top of
Page.
Updating the
Assignment Page
Where
is the update form?
From the Homework Hero Home Page, click
the assignments button, choose your school, and then choose the update
assignments option.
Below we provide help and hints for each
field on the Assignment Update form. Top
of Page.
Custom
HTML
You can include HTML (Hyper Tex Mark-up Language) tags
in any text box to customize the
appearance of your page (although our defaults will suit most users just
fine). See the examples below.
Warning:
Some long, complex HTML code may produce unpredictable results -- for
example, I advise against converting Word documents or Excel tables to
HTML and then pasting. Also, be aware that Homework Hero always converts
line breaks into the HTML line breaks -- this makes things easy for the
majority of users who will not use HTML. But if you do use HTML you may
need to remove line breaks from your code to avoid producing extra blank
lines. Finally, avoid the use of quotation marks when they are optional
-- these create some conflicts with quotation marks embedded in our
template code.
Example
1. Bold Text.
To make text bold, enter:
<b>This text is
bold.</b>
to produce this:
This text is bold.
Top
of Page.
Example
2. Add Color. To add color, enter:
<font color=red>This
text is red.</font>
to produce the following result:
This text is red.
Top
of Page.
Example
3. Combine Font Changes.
To produce text that is bold and red and in the Times New Roman font,
enter:
<b><font
color=red
face=Times New Roman>This
text is bold and red and Times New Roman</font></b>
to produce:
This text is
bold and red and Times New Roman
Top
of Page.
Example
4. Favorite Links. You can also use
HTML to insert hyperlinks to your favorite sites or sites students
should access to complete an assignment. If you enter the next 4
lines into a Homework Hero text box, you will get a list of my favorite
links produced on your assignment page. You can customize these by
substituting your own favorite web addresses and descriptions for the
expressions in red.
These are some of
my favorite links:
<a href="http://www.homeworkhero.com/">Homework
Hero</a>
<a href="http://www.asd.com/">American
School Directory</a>
<a href="http://www.ask.com/">Ask
Jeeves</a>
The preceding four lines of HTML will
produce the following four lines on your Homework Hero assignment pages:
These are some of my favorite links:
Homework Hero
American School Directory
Ask Jeeves
Students viewing your page can then click
your links to immediately access your favorite sites.
Top
of Page.
Example
5. Adding Graphics.
Our form includes a text box where
you can insert a URL for an image (see
below). However, you may also want to add images elsewhere. The
following line will insert a nice picture of me into your assignment
page:
<img src=http://www.homeworkhero.com/images/main/chipsmall.jpg>
To insert a more
interesting graphic, substitute its URL for the letters in red. Note:
This works for images already posted on the internet.
Please be aware that some images may be copyright protected -- do not
use these. Unfortunately, if you are using Homework Hero version 1.0, you cannot upload personal images to Homework
Hero. However, Homework Hero version 2.0 users can do so. Click
Here for version 2.0 help on image uploads.
See below for more on
finding clipart for your page.
Warning! If
you place a graphic in one of the course name boxes, you MUST delete the
quotation marks usually included in HTML code. Quotation marks will
create an error when your page is updated!
To get more information on simple HTML
tags, go to the WebMonkey
website.
Top
of Page.
Example
6. Marquee and Sound Effects.
Mr.
Stamey's Page has some nice marquee and sound effects. Here is how
he did it:
The Marquee:
<MARQUEE BGCOLOR="white"><font color=red face=Times New Roman>This week's Student of the Week is BRIAUNA HEARN! Writer of the Week is VANESSA BLANDING!"</font></MARQUEE>
Sound:
<embed src="http://eric.stamey.com/tlcno.mid" width=95 height=55 autostart=true loop=true><noembed><bgsound src="http://eric.stamey.com/tlcno.mid" loop=infinite></noembed>
Note: You must reference a sound file
already posted on the web somewhere to use feature.
Example
7. Add a Hit Counter
It is possible to place hit counters on your assignment page!
Free hit counters are available from a variety of sources on the web.
One site offering hit counters is bcentral (the "fastcounter"):
http://www.bcentral.com/products/fc/default.asp
Sign up for the hit counter and choose the style you want and paste the
provided code into an assignment data entry form. Remove all line breaks
from the text (Homework Hero automatically adds lines to your page when
it encounters line breaks in your submitted text). The bCentral site is
a Microsoft operation and you are required to get a passport account
when you sign up for the fastcounter.
Please do NOT use the "jellycounter,"
as it produces a javascript error and may also make pop-up ads appear on
your page.
I've placed a counter on the bottom of one of my demo pages that you can
see here: Teacher
Demo Page
Top
of Page.
Your
Name
Normally you should enter your first and
last names, as the form suggests. This field provides a title for your
page, so you could instead type "Assignments for Mr. Smith's
Classes" or something more original. Keep it short, or it may have
an awkward appearance when accessed from the web. Top
of Page.
Your
Last Name
Normally this is filled in for you and
should not be modified. However, if you need to change it, please enter
only your last name. Be sure to capitalize the first letter of your last
name. This field is needed for alphabetization of the teacher list and
for retrieving pages by a search of teacher names. Top
of Page.
E-mail Address
If you have an e-mail address and if you
want it to be published on your assignment page, enter it here.
Otherwise, leave it blank. Top
of Page.
School Name
No tricks here. Just type in the name of
your school. Top
of Page.
URL to Your Home Page
If you already have a homepage you can
provide a link to it from your Homework Hero Assignment Page. Enter the
full URL (web address) here. You must include the "http://"
prefix that begins every URL. You can leave this field blank if you do
not have a page you wish to link to. Top
of Page.
URL to a Web Image
If you would like a graphic image on your
page, you can do so by providing a link to any image on the internet.
Please be aware that some images may be copyright protected -- do not
use these. To link to an image, enter its URL in the appropriate text
box. For example, enter:
http://dmsweb.badm.sc.edu/chappell/images/chipsmal.jpg
to put my picture on your page. You
must include the http:// that starts every URL.
If you find an image
you want to use somewhere on the Web, it is easy to find its URL.
In
Netscape, click on the image with your right mouse button. At the bottom
of the pop-up box, choose "Copy Image Location." Now return to
the Homework Hero form, position the cursor in the input box, and select
"Edit" and then "Paste" from the Netscape menu.
In
Internet Explorer, click on the image with your right mouse button.
Select properties from the pop-up box. The properties box will then
display the image location (URL). Right mouse click on the URL.
Then choose select all. Again right mouse click on the URL. Choose
copy. Then return to the Homework Hero form, position the cursor in the input box,
and type the CONTROL-V key combination. This will paste the URL into the box.
Please avoid large images or
complex animated gifs.
These will cause your page to load slowly, especially for users with
slower connections. Also, be aware that if the owner of the site whose
image you link to ever deletes that image, it will disappear from your
page also.
Want to place a graphic image elsewhere
on your page? See Example 4 under Custom HTML
above.
Like to pick a graphic? Click
here to visit a site offering lots of educational clip art. Top
of Page.
Announcement Headline
This provides a headline on your page for
the announcements section. I suggest entering "Announcements!"
Top of
Page.
Your Special
Announcements
Provide the content of your announcements
here. I suggest listing important test dates and project due dates for
your classes. The appearance of the text you enter here and in the
remaining fields will be much as you type it. For best viewing results,
you should type in a series of short lines, each ended with a carriage
return (hit the "Enter" key). Very long lines will produce
very wide web pages that are awkward for viewers to see on their
screens. Top
of Page.
Course Name
Enter the title for your first course or
subject area here. For example, enter "Algebra II." Top
of Page.
Assignment
Enter the assignments for your page here.
The format on your page (line breaks, etc.) will match that of your
entry closely. When you update, I suggest adding new assignments to the
top of your existing entry. Older entries should probably be left on the
page for a week or two, so parents and students can see what they should
have been doing! Note that both the Course Name and Assignments fields
are repeated to permit entries for up to six courses. If you teach more
than six courses, please contact your principal -- you are being
overworked (or you can combine assignments for several courses under one
course heading). Top
of Page.
Keywords
When students access Homework Hero, they
have several ways to search for your assignment page. One way is through
keywords, which you enter in this field. Please enter general terms
describing your teaching areas. For example: Spanish, foreign, language,
math, trigonometry, calculus, history. Top
of Page.
Password
To update your page, you will also need
to give a password. If you wish to change your password, type the new
password here. Be sure to write down your user id and password and save
it in a safe place. If you lose or forget it, contact your local site
manager to be assigned a new one. Beware of distributing your password
widely -- a glance at the graffiti in your schools bathrooms will
probably suggest what your page will be assigning your students to do
once your password becomes public knowledge. Top
of Page.
Lost
and Forgotten Passwords
Your local site manager
can give you a new password if you have lost or forgotten yours. Instructions for the manager
regarding assigning
new passwords are found in Help for Managers.
It is best to contact your local site manager for a new password rather
than Homework Hero -- for security reasons we must verify the legitimacy
of all requests for a new password --- and this is usually easier for
the local manager than for us. If
you are unable to locate your site manager, contact us. However, keep in
mind that we can only send your new
password to an e-mail address listed on your assignment page
or to a school-based e-mail address that clearly identifies you.
Reminder Service
We offer an e-mail
service to remind you to post assignments to Homework Hero. Currently
reminder messages are sent on a weekly basis. We will consider adding a
separate daily reminder list if there is interest among our users. You will be able to cancel reminders
online at any time. Our privacy policy: we will never provide the
addresses on our e-mail lists to any person or any company for any
reason. Top
of Page.
Using Homework Hero
Effectively
The most important thing to remember is
that you must post assignments promptly! Describe long-term projects and
due dates in the Announcements section. Daily assignments should be
posted for each course, and should be left for a week or two. You can
also use the page to link students to your own home page, or to post
test results or other grades. This way parents can find out if
assignments are being turned in! Top
of Page.
Quit Homework Hero
We suggest that you not quit. However, if
you are not going to use Homework Hero, it is best not to have your
empty page posted. To quit, follow the links to the "Update
Assignments" page. You can choose the delete page option on this
form. If you delete your page, you will need to contact your local site
manager if
you later wish to recreate it. Top
of Page.
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