Teacher Web Sites – Focus on Students and Learning Resources

As teachers seek greater technological relevance, more and more individuals have created their own classroom web page. A trip around cyberspace yields a truly amazing assortment of sites, differentiated by their fundamental appearance, overall focus and amount of content.

Because there is a wealth of web site tools to use, teachers have almost too many options available to choose from. Given the plethora of choices and open-ended content options for each format, the question emerges, what should a classroom web site look like and what materials should be available on the site.

One Rubric to Consider
One gauge for teachers has been created by Joan Vandervelde and is on the University of Wisconsin-Stout web page. Vandervelde created seven categories to consider with different amounts of points for respective categories.

The rubric places a heavier emphasis on three categories: the content relevance for students and parents (a potential of nine points); the use of photos, graphics, sound, animation and video to enhance the site (six points); and proper application of fair-use guidelines (another six points).

Of lesser importance, but still receiving consideration are: site navigation tools, both internal and external; layout and text elements; contact person and copyright information; the speed at which web pages load; and the proper use of grammar with correct spelling. Each of the final five categories has a weight of three points each, bringing the total rubric score to 36.

The rubric’s emphasis on content relevance and visual appeal need no explanation. If a teacher has a site, then the material on that site must be relevant to his or her students and to their respective parents. To draw those two groups to the site, visual appeal and a variety of sensory input are certainly helpful.

However, the emphasis on proper application of fair-use guidelines might surprise some. It shouldn’t. Teachers should first and foremost be role models for students and their parents, and a web site is one of the most public methods for teachers to model expectations. Any site failing to meet the agreed-upon requirements sets a very poor example for students.

The final five categories represent the more mundane aspects but links that work, pages that load at reasonable speeds, and an ability to navigate the site are critical. Like the proper application of fair-use guidelines, the text elements, especially those related to spelling and grammar, are a reflection of a teacher’s standards.

A Few Examples
Today, with all the examples to choose from, one could never list all the sites worthy of mention. But to give readers a sense of a few concepts deserving of consideration we offer links to Mr. Mollinga, Miss Ryan, Ms. López-Isa, and Mr. Lang.

We begin with Mr. Mollinga and the site for his class at Sunset Elementary School. This teacher offers some very interesting game options including a version of Hangman that features the spelling words students have been working on. We must admit we got caught up trying to nail that pesky bug at Mosquito Swat.

Mr. Mollinga offers a number of links, broken up by sites for kids (eg: Kidzworld, Artsology, and The Discovery Channel Online), sites for teachers (eg: Teachernet, Busy Educators’ Guide to the World Wide Web, and B.C. Prescribed Learning Outcomes) and sites for parents (eg: familyeducation.com, Scholastic, and Parents Talk.)

But the aspect we liked most was his use of photos featuring the students in his classroom. His site features each student in the class, without any name identification of course, as well as many classroom action shots dispersed throughout the web pages. Such a touch is a great motivator to get both kids and parents to visit the site, a prerequisite for the site to be used.

At Miss Ryan’s site we noted the posting of book reviews with multiple years of examples available. One critical aspect of education is for children to have access to examples of work that teachers want them to emulate. Finding ways to post work online for both students and parents to access, again while maintaining confidentiality aspects, is a great way to provide exemplars for students to aspire to.

All teachers should find ways to post work samples online so that parents have a sense of what the teacher expects as a product from his or her students. We would add that creating basic presentation or movies with voice overs from students would be another aspect to consider. It would serve as both a sample of expectations as well as a draw for students and parents to visit the site.

As for another location for teachers to take a peek at, we offer Ada López-Isa’s Educational web site as a potential role model. Beginning with the site name (Sitio Educativo de Ada López-Isa), Ada provides the Spanish equivalent for all of the families where parents have not yet mastered the English language.

On the site, there are the Florida Sunshine State Standards, again in English and Spanish, the Miami Dade M-DCPS K-12 CBC (Curriculum), the M-DCPS Education Portal for Parents (Portal Educativo de M-DCPS para los Padres) and the Florida Department of Education. Even links to the No Child Left Behind Act (La Ley Ningún Niño Quedará Atrás) are provided in multilingual form as well as the traditional Meet The Teacher (Conozca a la Maestra).

Ada provides teachers an example of how a classroom site can and should be adjusted so as to be a true resource for parents including those who are not proficient in the English language. Though the site offers a number of helpful links, those connections would be of little use if not for a design that recognizes appropriate parental needs.

Many websites offer information on how to learn Spanish, but few have the depth and creativity that Ada offers.

A Resource Haven
When it comes to resources, we offer Mr. Lang’s site as a strong example of what teachers can do.

As with many teachers, Jeremy Lang’s responsibilities form an endless list of expectations. A teacher of Grade 7 Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Math, Jeremy coordinates Grade 7/8 Video Production, Grade 7/8 Web Design and the Citizenship Committee. Lang also coaches two sports and handles the tech responsibilities for 3 computer labs and all mobile technology for classroom uses (laptops, Smart Boards, projectors, and digital cameras).

In direct response to those job responsibilities, Lang’s site yields an impressive set of resources for other educators as well as parents and students.

Lang offers separate sections that focus on mathematics, science and technology. Math links range from Create A Graph to Webmath while science sites include Cells Alive, NASA’s Earth Observatory, and Oceanography. Simply check out the student resources page for links to these and other worthwhile sites.

In the area of Video Production, Lang offers links to movie maker forums as well as manuals, both basic and advanced, including three separate aspects of Windows Movie Maker. Additional links bring readers to screen writing and script writing tutorials.

Other areas of focus include Photojournalism & Photography and some useful software sites like CoffeeCup, GIMP and K3D. In sum total Mr. Lang’s site provides other teachers a great example as to how they can extend the learning environment for students, parents and fellow educators.

The specific area that teachers should take a careful look at is Mr. Lang’s game’s room page of online games that kids and adults will truly enjoy, preferably with a mindset on spending time together as they play. From Battleship to Yhatzee, from Chinese Checkers to Solitaire, parents have a wealth of fun options to enjoy with their kids. Lang also offers a number of more traditional learning–oriented options such as Add Like Mad, Colours, Multiplication Station, Subtraction Action and CanadaGeo, each activity offering the potential to directly help children with their basis school expectations. Throw in Word Search and Sudoku options and families literally have hours of potential online action available.

Much to Choose From
When constructing a web site, teachers have many design options to choose from. But to create a truly useful site that brings students and parents back, time and again, we think teachers would do well to consider the various areas we have noted.

As a start, teachers may simply assess their site against the rubric we provided. Such a review would certainly help individual educators improve their online presence.