Q1. Is knowledge of PageMill, FrontPage or a HTML editor like it OK instead of knowing HTML?

A1. Yes.

Q2. Will students be able to work on the project from their individual computers at home and will the fact that some are IBM and others are Mac matter?

A2. There's no problem with students working from home, but you might want them to bring their work to school to upload it to the FTP server. We run a platform-agnostic program--both PCs and Macs are perfectly OK.

Q3. When my students write a little intro about themselves, I'm not comfortable with submitting last names. One safety tip for posting student work on the Internet, is to not include last names, identifying pictures, or identifying personal material. Some of my parents were hesitant for their child to participate in posting school work until I explained what safety precautions I practice when posting student work. How "in-depth" are your requiring the student introduction to be? Will it be necessary to post last names? How much personal information do you want?

A3. The only part of the program the public will see is the websites created by each of the teams. The students' names, photos, discussions and preliminary work will be in a web-based discussion area that is password-protected and accessible only to other participants and the program coordinators. We realize that some schools have very strict rules about students' privacy. If your school's policy won't allow your students to identify themselves to other students on the Net, even in a closed-off, closely monitored environment, there are ways to work around it, like having the students snail mail photos of themselves to each other for classroom posting.

Q4. Although the common language is English if there are some Japanese speaking students in my school could they communicate in Japanese?

A4. Yes, and your team could even make a bilingual website if you like.

Q5. Where can I see the Websites from participants of past years?

A5. A sampling of websites from the previous AT&T Virtual Classroom can be found by clicking here or by using the "Award-Winning Web Sites" button.