About This Document and Developer
Howdy y'all and Welcome!
You may have heard your teachers tell you they want to prepare you to
become "life-long learners". You are looking at one. I was born a LONG
time ago in Omaha, NE. My original college degree was a Bachelor of
Science from the College of Dentistry at the University of Nebraska.
GO BIG RED! After working for almost twenty years as a registered dental
hygienist, I changed careers. (It's never too late to go back to school.)
Two years later, the University of Nebraska added Elementary Ed. certification
to my original degree. A company (ENRON) move with my husband brought
my family to Houston in 1988. I "retired" from full time teaching (4th
grade math, science, social studies) when my son graduated from the
Texas A & M Fire Academy in 1995. I completed a Master's Degree in Curriculum
and Instruction specializing in Instructional Technology.
This document was developed under the guidance of Dr. Bernard Robin, mentor and sage, along with Dr. Sara McNeil, one of the most creative, inspiring instructors I've had the pleasure to know. Both are Assistant Professors in the Instructional Technology program at the University of Houston.
My goal was to create a Web location where students can go for an "historical field trip"--close enough to home to be familiar, but too far away to go with a class. I am hoping to 1) provide a vehicle for integration of technology into the classroom by extending rather than duplicating the existing social studies curriculum; 2) expand student knowledge and interest about the history of their state; 3) motivate further student exploration.
If you are not currently aware, you will soon understand links on the Web can be very transitory. The links provided on these pages worked at the time the project was completed . I apologize in advance should you have difficulty following any link and hope, by providing you with access to other search engines--which you may want to bookmark-- (AltaVista, Excite , Yahoo, Infoseek, Lycos), you'll be able to fill in the gaps and find even better information.
Also, REMEMBER graphics intensive pages take time to load. You have the option of being patient OR deselecting the "Auto Load Images" under the Options menu. Once deselected, all your pages will load as text only. Later, you can add images to a chosen page by selecting "Load Images" under the View menu OR you can reactivate the "Auto Load Images" for all subsequent pages.
Credit Your Source
As an example, six of the graphics in my title bar are my personal adaptations of work created mostly by Jeff Haynie for Steck-Vaughn Co. They were borrowed from a workbook I purchased ten years ago. I then altered those images using Photoshop. Their age may account for the reason I have not yet heard from Austin regarding permission for their use. Even though I am not profiting from the images and have altered them, they are still recognizable and I have sought, as you should remember to do, his permission to use them.
The easiest way to avoid copyright infringment is to create your own work. The historical information on these pages was provided by people in the Chamber of Commerce offices, Visitors Bureaus and/or libraries in the various cities. I have taken that information and paraphrased it using my own words just as you do when using research information from an encyclopedia or other written source. Facts and ideas can not be copyrighted.
The lines, bars, and many of the buttons/icons were borrowed from Terry Gould's and Dale W. Clinton's respective Web sites. They have been placed in the public domain for your use.
I took the photographs using my son's Canon EOS 35MM camera; scanned the photos using an Apple scanner; saved the images as .gif using Photoshop. This is an easy way to avoid the hassle of photo release or permission-to-print forms. It makes your work uniquely yours, and is fun to do. If I had been sure my pictures would develop as I hoped, I would have had them processed onto a photo CD at the time of developing. Being new at this, I didn't want a photo CD of poor photos, so I chose to have prints made first. The negatives can now be used by the lab to create a photo CD. It is an extra step, but now I am sure to have only the "good photos".