As disappointing as it is to me personally, having my own website to share information with parents is not an option as a Reading Assistant. While watching a slide show of Web 2.0 tools I discovered
Weebly. Weebly allows an individual to create their own website as a subset of their domain. I thought creating the site was going to be very difficult but it really wasn't. I set it up so each grade level has its own page. On each page I plan to include information about the group focus and the reason why we are learning this information. Also, I plan to include activities to help
with the specific skill. I think it can be a great tool for parents to see what their child is doing in Reading group. Often, it is the case that parents do not know what their child is doing in the classrooms let alone in a small group setting.
What do you, as classroom teachers, think about class websites? Do you have control of the content? Do you update them often? Is updating them a time consuming job? Is it used at home on a regular basis to make it a worth while task I am just beginning to undertake?
NETS Connections: Students can create original works to showcase their findings about a topic and share with a global audience on their very own website! In order to accomplish this task students will have had to locate, organize, and evaluate information leading to this reporting of results.
Wow, Kelly, I am impressed. We will be covering Weebly this week, April 12, in the other section of 584. I will let the students know of your enthusiasm. I used Weebly to develop my website for my English class last semester. It is a snap to use, but the free version won't allow embedded YouTubes, which is really okay with me. (I just made links to them.) Weebly is probably one of the easiest web designing tools to use to create impressive sites, and it really works well for the elementary school grades. You really are a whiz with using all of these Web 2.0 tools; you can now teach other teachers or even your peers in our class how to get started with Weebly. Given your creativity, I imagine, you will also find a way to incorporate a Weebly website into your work with students even if you don't have your own classroom per se.
ReplyDeleteI showed it to some of the fourth grade students today- let them see the basics of how it works and gave them a few suggestions on sites they may be interested in creating on their own. They seemed very excited about creating their own sites. I can almost guarantee a couple of them will show me sites they created over vacation!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteThat looks great! I like how you made a page for each grade level. Parents of first grade students can see what their child is currectly working on and help support your work at home, but they can also see what skills their child will need in second grade. Let us know when it is up and running!
...to respond to your questions. We have classroom websites that we are "encouraged" to maintain but so far there have not been any requirements. I update it monthly with birthdays, what is going on in our classroom, and school for each month. I used to update it weekly with weekly homework assignments and spelling words but I would often forgot so I changed to updating it monthly. I used to embed within my webpage a line that said "if you are a parent reading this let me know through a written note or email, unfortunatly I never received a note or email, so I think it depends on the parents if it worth the undertaking to update it weekly. If I knew parents were using the website and reading it, I would definitely be more motivated to use it more. I send home a paper copy of a newsletter with what we are learning in language arts, math, spelling/phonics, science or social studies, weekly homework and spelling words. I have debated putting it into a online format or emailed it or posting to my webpage but haven't. I like how Maggie asked if parents would like an electronic copy of her newsletter at the start of the year. Something to try next year...
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