Classroom Website

For our MET class this week, the students were asked to respond to one of three different questions.  I chose to respond to question 3. (Many teachers have a classroom website with varying levels of success.  How have you made your classroom website more useful to students, families, and other educators?  What gaps still remain?)

I created a classroom website many years ago and didn’t do a lot with it.  I few years back I was introduced to Weebly.  It is a free website generator and easy to use.  Feel free to take a look at my classroom website. 

Over the last year, I have tried to make my website a useful collaborative tool for my students, parents, and community.  An improvement that I made recently was putting a purpose statement on the home page of my website.  Anyone who visits my site now knows why I’ve created it and how it can be used. 

My classroom website is used by students on a daily basis.  On the desk top of every student computer, right in the middle of the screen so it is visual to all, there is an icon for our classroom website.  My website has a page with the student rules.  This includes the rules for the building, the classroom, and when they are using technology.  I have all the links to items they will need each day.  There are links to practice spelling words, practice reading, check AR progress, take AR tests, find the level of a book,  practice math facts, view my team teacher’s website, and play fun games.  I always make it known to the students at the beginning of the year that they can only get on the links listed on my website unless we are doing research and I give permission for other links.  I want all links to be safe and age appropriate.  As I learn a new tool appropriate for students, I add it to the links page.  I use the Smart Board to show where the new link is located in the website and allow students practice on the Smart Board how it is to be used.  During the fourth quarter of the last year, I added Twiducate. It was our own private social network right in the classroom.  Students got to feel like they were tweeting as they answered questions and solved problems.  I plan to start it at the beginning of this year so I can do more with it.  As part of a class assignment during last semester, my class website became my class Ning and I added a discussion forum for my students.  I have not used this yet with students.  This will be a goal for this year. 

There are several items on my website that parents can use.  They are able to view the class schedule and the newsletter that goes home with students weekly.  There is a contact information page for parents.  It contains my plan time, my classroom phone number, and a forum to contact me by email.  I have a link on my link page that displays the common core standards if parents would like to know what we are expected to teach.  I go over my webpage during information night at the beginning of the year plus the site address is in my newsletter weekly; however, I’m not sure how often my parents use it.  This is something I would like to improve. 

I team teach with another 2^nd Grade Teacher.  She teaches Math to both our classes and I teach ELA to both classes.  As I mentioned previously, the link to her website is on the links page of my classroom website.  I want my students to have all her tools available on a daily basis also.  My grade level and I collaborate a lot through grade level meetings, email, and with our Google Drive as we share items; but not so much through our websites.  This is probably the biggest gap that needs to be filled on my website.  I do have plans to add every 2^nd Grade teacher’s website address to my webpage.   I need to add more content areas also.  I believe my website will always be a work in progress and changes will need to be made on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis as I learn new ideas and gain new tools. 

After reading this post and viewing my classroom website, what are some ways I can make it more useful for students, parents, and other educators?