Newer versions of Netscape (Netscape Gold and Netscape Communicator) contain a basic web editor called Netscape Composer which I have found easy to work with. Here are the steps I used to prepare my online syllabi:
1. Browse a number of online syllabi (http://www.uni.edu/walsh/syllabi.html)to get a feel for the various looks and formats possible and what appeals to you. Notice that in some cases a syllabus will be a single long document (you can use the scroll bar to move through it); this is the easiest type of syllabus for beginning developers. In other cases a syllabus will consist of multiple linked pages. These are not difficult to prepare once you get used to the linking process, but require a little more attention to maintaining links in future versions of the syllabus.
2. Bookmark syllabi you might want to go back to. Save your favorites on a floppy. Select one of these favorites to serve as a "template" for your syllabus.
3. Open the file you have saved on your floppy. Netscape will ask if you want to open it in "Navigator" or in "Composer". Choose Composer whenever you are editing a document.
4. In the opened file, substitute your course information for the existing course information.
5. Personalize your syllabus with additions and deletions of sections of the syllabus, color or image changes, etc.
6. Save the edited file with your own course filename. Now you need to contact your computer systems administrator to learn the policy for web accounts, uploading files, etc. on your campus. In a pinch you can post course materials using web accounts on a commercial provider ( my first 6 pages were housed on the commercial provider Prodigy for a couple years before my campus had a presence on the web).
If you are already a web-user you may well have a
long list of bookmarks related to the content that you teach. Visit those
bookmarked sites and decide which might be useful additions to your course
(either in a online resource list or perhaps as "requirements" to incorporate
in your syllabus - either as a "hotlist" or as "assigned readings" linked
to syllabus.
Don't have class-related bookmarks? Jot down a list
a key terms, theories, researchers, etc. and do a series of searches using
a search engine like Alta Vista. Bookmark valuable sites. It takes time
but you are likely to find more than enough material to enhance and enliven
your course.
To add links to external sites to your syllabus:
While in Navigator click once on a bookmark, then click the right-hand
mouse button to copy that location to your clipboard. Now go to the syllabus
file which you have open in Composer and use the right-hand button
to paste at the appropriate location. You may edit the visible bookmark
label/URL to a shorter or more meaningful label without affecting the underlying
link. Type within the link label (your new text should appear blue, indicating
it is hyperlinked) and then delete any of the old link label that you don't
want.
Useful Tools Within Netscape Composer
Under Insert - Insert table, insert image
Under Edit - Undo, delete table (or table row or column)
Under Format - Font, Heading, Indentation, List (e.g. to create bulleted
lists)
Link - to link to (jump to) sections within your document or to other
sites on the web
Target - to label a section of your document as the target for a within-document
link
Copy and paste, as always, can be used to copy components of other
documents and paste them to your syllabus, editing them as necessary.