| CLASSROOM
WEB SITES What
is it?
A
classroom website can be a very effective communication tool. It can enhance
communication between the classroom and students, parents and the community.
Classroom websites can be showcases for students' work, newsletters, and
other classroom information. They can contain homework assignments as
well as any ongoing or upcoming projects.
Why Use
it?
The greatest
benefit is increased communication. With the extensive use of the Internet,
the classroom website can become one of your most effective communication
tools. At some schools home Internet use is up around 90% which means
it can be a great tool for information exchange. Parents and students
can log on and see students work and assignments. The community can access
the information to find out what is going on in the classroom, school
and community.
Considerations
If you are a teacher designing a class or school web site there are many
things
you
must consider that a typical webmaster might not worry about.
The first issue is how will the students be involved with the site. It
is essential to get the students involved with your site, while still
keeping a good degree of control over the structure and content. Good
school web sites display student work, and have new work posted fairly
often. This not only motivates the
students, but shares the efforts of the school with the entire community
and others around the web.
When posting student work to your site you need to consider security
and permission. Many schools do not put individual student pictures
or full names on their web sites for safety reasons. Depending on your
board policy, it may be important to get parent release forms for student
pictures and work to be
displayed on the site. These permission could be incorporated into a general
release form for all school activities.
Often schools will require that a principal or administrator approve the
content before it is posted to the site. From the webmaster's perspective
it is also important to keep some control over the publishing procedure.
If too many teachers or students are allowed to publish directly to the
server then content could very easily become destroyed, or disorganized
on the server.
Maintenance of the links and pages on the site should not be underestimated.
It will take the webmaster a decent amount of time to resolve all the
technical
issues with the web site and keep it properly updated. If the district
decides
to put a lot of time sensitive content on the site then helpers will be
needed
to get new content to the webmaster in a timely fashion.
How is
it used?
Examples:
- Teacherweb
allows the teacher to set up a simple yet effective classroom website
http://teacherweb.com/
- http://classroomclipart.com/
Classroom clipart is a K-12 educational clipart site for students
- http://myschoolonline.com/golocal/
Putting education online with free school websites from myschoolonline.com
- Database
of over 30,000 education related websites and resources. http://www.eduhound.com/
Designing Web-Based Resources for Classroom Use.
- Tools
for the TEKS: Integrating Technology in the Classroom
This website is maintained for educators interested in the effective
use of technology in the classroom. An accompanying column to this website
is published in the TechEdge, the Technology and Education Newsletter
of the Texas Computer Education Association. http://www.wtvi.com/teks/workshops.html
Creating
a classroom web page should be fun, exciting and collaborative!
3 Easy
Steps
1. Plan an introductory page with your students. Draft a copy of
the items that you and your students want to include on your first page.
Try to plan for future links and emphasize student content.
2. Collaborate with other teachers who enjoy creating web pages.
Teachers who are publishing their first web page will need the support
of more experienced web masters. Find a mentor and make him or her part
of your collaborative team. School based mentors are probably the best
but another one may be just an email away.
3. Create one page and make reference to the following sites:
Helpful
Hints
- Set aside
a major block of time to begin working on your web page
- Maintaining
your pages and upgrading information on your pages will need attention
on a regular basis make sure you timetable for this
- Allow
room for revision and time to reflect on the draft product
- Be patient
and remember it takes time to create the page you and your students
want
- Use bullets
when ever possible
- Remember
reading on a screen is different than reading a book or newspaper and
your audience is looking for a quick and easy read
- Graphics
are super but use them wisely
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