There are a zillion reasons to create a website as a Teacher Resource, or at least the eight we will describe below. Besides understanding the purposes of all eight reasons, you’ll also want to master creating a website. To begin with you’ll need to practice creating webpages using a web authoring tool. Then, of course, you’ll have to connect to an internet service provider to post your website. And finally, you’ll need to continue to update your work regularly.
The eight reasons to create a website as a Teacher Resource
are as follows:
(l) For parent communication
(2) To describe current homework and projects, clarifying assignments
(3) To connect with other teachers and classroom projects
(4) To provide homework and research help, including extra
credit
(5) To create Internet activities that are easily accessible for
classroom lessons
(6) To enhance current thematic units by identifying resources
for students to use at home and in the classroom or in the
library on the Internet
(7) To permanently store great stuff you find on the Internet
(8) To make quick access buttons to your resources for morning work,
hooks....
Parent Communication: Parents are looking for ways to remain an active part of their child’s education. They are expecting educators to enable them by giving them up-to-date information about assignments, activities, grades, due dates, objectives and so forth. In my class, I send a weekly letter to parents with the Tuesday folder, which is a collection of graded student work and PTA announcements, describing what’s in the folder and what events or issues are coming up. However, over 40% of my students return to homes where only one parent gets this Tuesday folder information. A website with similar information posted becomes a beacon for the non-custodial parent to learn about class activities and Web sites that will be helpful when the child is visiting them with a homework assignment. Other parent information might include Tutors in the Area, Homework Help Internet sites, a hook to the school website for local information.
Description of Current Homework and Projects: Homework is posted daily on a large Homework Chart in my class. Students are to copy their homework daily into a spiral notebook provided by the school as soon as they walk into my classroom. However, there are numerous reasons why this system might break down: strings practice, PE as soon as morning announcements are over, Patrol duties, GT meetings, late to school because of an orthodontist appointment, sick at home and so on. By posting my weekly assignments Sunday night on an Internet site, I can help students and parents know that these oddball quirks in our homework recording system are easily rectified if they are diligent enough to go find the information.
Classroom Projects: In my excitement every year with what’s going on in the Internet, I inevitably join three or four projects that I think will connect nicely with the curriculum I am supposed to teach. These projects frequently involve URL addresses and email notes and directions. By placing these Projects on my personal Teacher Webpage, I have enabled students to continue the projects by going to the webpage and clicking into the project, rather than finding a handout in a looseleaf notebook on the teacher desk. Top students are trained to keep up with the requirements of the classroom project: measure the snowfall and post the data, write 5 questions the class has about the subject, copy and save new photos about the project, update the map to tell where the explorers are today and so forth. Some of these projects have included: Globalearn, the SNOW Project, S’COOL, SWOOPES, Geogame, Stock Market Game and others. In addition, a Teacher Resource website can be used to set up your own projects. We have set up the TransAmerica website project which described a journey across America, providing Science and Geography, Career and Math lessons. After training at NASA Langley, I created a SPACE website project to post projects and student activities. I am currently creating a Chesapeake Bay website Project, following receipt of and EDS grant.
Providing Homework and Research Help, Setting up Extra Credit: Our class has monthly homeprojects in Math and Science from September to June, including: designing weather tools and projects, creating graphs from national sports data, cutting out pictures which demonstrate math concepts, researching the rain forest, caring for pet mealworms, investigating energy use of your house and testing the water quality of local streams. These home projects are described in handouts to students and parents monthly. However, on the website these handouts can be enhanced with suggested websites to get further information about the project. In addition, many students have extra time available to them for Internet activities when their parents are still at work. Some students use this for webchatting and game playing. But you can set up Extra Credit actitivities for your students with Web resources which will engage them in meaningful learning at home.
Creating Internet Lessons: In our
school, we have three main opportunities for Internet lessons. In
the morning, I have assigned students, on different days of the week,
to enter the class and begin to work on Internet lesson activities during
morning work time. Typical Internet activities for this Morning Work
time include Math Internet work set up by Silver Burdett, not our math
series, but set up for each grade level to match book chapters and math
objectives, or worksheets I have created to help students delve into Websites
set up by others which have pertinent curriculum information I want students
to learn. In addition, our class goes once a week to a computer lab
for the day to complete computer activities which supplement our curriculum.
These weekly lab situations frequently involve students in two-three week
Internet activities like webquests. Some of the webquests we have participated
in have been “Finding the Site for a new National Park,” “Bringing a New
Sports Team to Washington, DC,” and “Creating Webpages for Students to
learn Science since we don’t have Up-top-Date Science Textbooks.” Thirdly,
there are several opportunities during the week for the computers to be
used in class for ongoing Internet research or assignments while the rest
of the class is completing other assignments.
Enhance Thematic Units: In Virginia, our grade level curricula is dictated by local county objectives - Programs of Study (POS) and state level Standards of Learning (SOL’s). I frequently feel hard put to get everything done that is expected of me. By using Thematic Units, many curriculum objectives can be accomplished on one project. For instance, during a Weather Unit we do in the winter, we access and record daily weather information and then later make spreadsheets in Math class with the data. We search the Internet and write reports which work on student skills in information reading and writing. Similarly, our Mealworm Unit includes science information, reading information from Internet Mealworm sites and writing science stories. The Jason Project is a thematic unit we joined which combines geography, science, social studies, reading and writing. I use the Internet to organize this Thematic Unit, including lessons I have written to help students use the Jason Project site, offline lessons, research projects, and student web authoring.
To permanently store great stuff you find on the Internet - Being an active Internet teacher user, we are constantly getting great ideas for lessons and terrific websites we want to remember. Keeping paper documents about all of these sites in an organized notebook is helpful and a bookmark file on a disk is a great technique, but storing them permanently on a Teacher Resource Website has been more helpful to us than either of the former. We can update the files easily. When we travel to train others, the websites are immediately available. The paper trail is never lost or in another place.
To make quick access buttons to your resources for morning work, hooks.... - One of the great news ways that teachers are using the Internet these days is to help start off the day in school. Most classrooms now have a large screen TV hooked to the computer on the Internet. Primary classes frequently have Holiday and Famous People sites that they can access to help begin the class discussion. Similarly, an Internet Hook to a new unit is a great way to begin a lesson, especially if the website is visually interesting. For example, starting a Science Lab with a real life picture of the Microscope or Mealworm or Pendulum or Bubbles or Electric Power Station is motivating for the students about to begin the lab. Starting a new chapter in American History by going to an Internet site with pictures related to the Plymouth Colony or Battle of Gettysburg or California Gold Rush will help get kids excited about the chapter they are about to read. Featuring an Internet site about an author is a motivating way to begin a Student Writer’s Workshop. These Internet Hooks are quick and easy to find, especially when you have created a Teacher Resource Website.