What
makes a quality classroom Web site?
- Academically
and intellectually sound, including meaningful information, activities,
and links
- Thematically
and artistically coordinated using common backgrounds and structures
that link your site together graphically and thematically
- Interactive,
including WebQuests, electronic
communities, and other activities for students
- Attractive
and appropriate material for your students, their parents, and your
teaching colleagues
- Relevant and
marketable: includes a portfolio of your professional work and accomplishments
How do I create
a classroom Web site?
Sample
classroom Web sites |TOP|
Begin by getting
an idea of what a classroom or teaching Web site is and how it works
by looking at examples. Some outstanding sites created by future
teachers at Western Michigan University include those of:
Structuring
the Classroom Web site |TOP|
Before you begin,
you should plan the structure of your classroom Web site. You might
map out the main pages and secondary pages. A classroom Web site should
include at least the following pages:
1. Home Page
The home page needs a title, perhaps setting forward some metaphor
or theme that will be repeated in the rest of the site. Your home
page should include your name (with a working e-mail link), perhaps
an appropriate picture of yourself, and other attractive photographic
or visual elements.
Your home page
also provides links to the other main pages in yours site, including
those for students, parents, teachers, your professional portfolio,
your teaching philosophy, and any personal information. To achieve
this, you should create a navigation bar, place in a consistent location
on every page.
2.
Student Page
This page should include on-line syllabi, links to sites that support
activities you might use as a teacher, links to e-communities
that could supplement your course, recommended reading lists for your
students, and learning activities such as WebQuests.
On this page you
may want to summarize your teaching philosophy in an appealing way
and add links to your complete philosophy and other professional or
student work or writing you have done. You can include "handouts"
or resources for classes you teach, grading information, expectations,
rubrics, etc.
3.
Parent Page
Again, your parent page might link to your teaching philosophy, allow
you to post student work and grades, provide links of interest to
parents and other sites you think parents would find important. Here
are some recommended sites for parents.
4.
Teacher Page
On this page for teachers and colleagues you can post links to lesson
plans you have created, teaching ideas from professional journals
and from the Web, links to professional teacher organizations, and
other links, resources, or materials that might interest teachers
or colleagues.
5.
Teaching Philosophy Page
This page should demonstrate your professionalism and philosophies.
Use current professional and theoretical language, and write the page
so that it can be understood by a variety of potential audiences including
future employers, colleagues, students, and parents. Be sure to break
up your text into manageable sections by using anchor tags.
6.
Professional Page
This page can serve as your teaching portfolio and may be especially
important for your intern supervisor and future employers. Post professional
materials and accomplishments from your teaching and/or teacher preparation
courses and intern teaching. Include your resume. Consider
using .pdf format to make your resume more attractive. For advice
on how to create an attractive electronic portfolion, check out Helen
Barrett's site.
Getting
Started |TOP|
Choosing
a design program or Web service
The best way to start your page is simply from a blank screen in one
of the Web design programs such as Netscape Composer (download
for free), Macromedia Dreamweaver (download
free 30-day trial), or Microsoft Front Page. You can also
use word processing programs or desktop publishing programs, such
as Word or Publisher, that will allow you to save your page as an
.html document.
Or, you could
begin with an existing template and modify it to your own purposes
using a Web design program. Check out Template
Option 1, Template
Option 2. To use these templates, save them
into your local directory. You and your students can also get great
free templates at Freelayouts.com.
When you borrow a template, be sure to ask permission when necessary,
give credit, and link back to the template site.
If designing from scratch with software is not your thing, check out
the resources for creating classroom Web sites
listed below. These sites are dedicated to helping educators publish
Web sites without a lot of work.
As a last resort,
check out the following commercial sites, which offer free domains
and easy-to-use templates: Angelfire,
Fortunecity, Homestead,
GeoCities. or FreeWebspace.
Of course, all of these services will run pop-up and banner adds on
your Web site. For a monthly subscription you can publish on sites
without adds at Yahoo or Homestead.
Resources
for Creating Classroom Web sites |TOP|
Specific
Help for Classroom Web sites
Microsoft
Education World provides a thorough list of free domains
and templates.
Teacher Web allows teachers
to create and archive their classroom Web sites.
Filamentality
offers free, easy-to-use templates for Web activities like the WebQuest.
Class Homepage Builder Scholastic lets you create and publish
classroom Web sites.
Classroom Tripod offers free site building, hosting and e-mail.
Scholastic.com has a simplified site specifically for teachers
to publish Web pages.
Surfette's
Pages for Teachers Making Web Pages offers a Netscape Composer
tutorial.
Web Teacher offers tutorials
in HTML, java, and Flash.
Web
Design
Jesset.com offers design tips and techniques.
Creating Good Web Sites
is an in-depth examination of successful Web design.
Web Pages That Suck
is a humorous look at what not to do.
Backgrounds
and Buttons
Background City, Top100-websites,
GRSites, and Free-Backgrounds
all offer different backgrounds.
Freebuttons.com has lots of
button options.
Gif Works has free resources
for 3-D text, animated banners, buttons, etc.
Flaming Text has buttons,
arrows, bullets, and other resources.
Images
Although it is simple to cut and paste images, commercial images,
photographs, and texts may be under copywrite. To be safe, request
permission from the owner of the site where you find such an image
and create a link to the original page.
Sources
for images for teacher Web pages: Teacherfiles.com, Homeroom
Teacher, Discovery
School,
Community Learning
Network. Aphids Communications
offers links to archives of images you might like on your page.
Museum sites can be a rich source for classic art works to decorate
your page. If you use these images, be sure to follow copyright laws.
Try Artchive.com, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The
Modern Art Museum, Barewalls.com.
Publishing
Your Site to the Web |TOP|
Of course, your
final goal is to publish your Web site on the Web. Be sure to know
how your server operates: it may or may not support the page you have
designed. Your institution may also provide you with space on their
server to publish your pages. Students at Western Michigan University,
publish on the WMU homepages server.
You can also publish your site on a free host server, such as godaddy,
easyspace, websource,
doteasy, etc.
