Web Sites as Conduits for Teaching

I am a second generation teacher. My mother had no need for excessive technology in her day. I grew up seeing the movement from slide rule becoming obsolete to digital calculators becoming mainstream. Now my son has his own laptop and phones are as powerful as some of the first computers. The web is a valuable resource when used correctly. Creating your own website will allow you to guide your students into this resource.

ANYONE can make their own website, do not be afraid of technology. For those not as tech savvy, look into the predefined templates. Google sites has a classroom website template that is perfect for an elementary class and easily adapted to secondary school needs. I repeat ANYONE can make a site this way for FREE.

The best thing about Google Sites is that it has wonderful how to links and tips to guide you step by step or when you just get stuck. There is the ability for more complex html programming or you can stick to their basic page templates. If it is your first attempt at a site be sure to complete the tutorial first. Going through the tutorial will help minimize simple mistakes and save construction time.

I highly recommend building a site to interface with your students. This site can serve as a parent teacher interface, and an organizational tool for students and yourself. With a website and the availability of access to the web via phone, Internet driven businesses, public libraries, school computer labs, personal computers, and more your students could not pull the, "I didn't know that was due excuse." This is the electronic age. We can do a lot of thing paperless to accent our teaching. Teaching with technology is about increasing the paths and depths of learning in our students. What better way to do this than using the web and creating your own site. My demo site is a sample secondary school chemistry website created via google sites: http://sites.google.com/site/mkgbrookchemistry/.

Google Sites

Anyone can have a web page! Google sites is a free shareware website generation medium. As teachers we need to convey a lot of information quickly and efficiently. A good way to do this is to set up e-mail lists for you parents and students, in addition to having a class website. The most important stuff to include in a website for my class is a calendar, homework assignment list with detailed instruction, detailed project listings, vocabulary and test study sheets, note links, and important references. A blog and bio are nice, but not essential in conveying student learning information. I will definitely have a website for each class!

Technology Assessment

I have truly enjoyed learning how to teach with technology. One of the most important topics I have learned from my class is to use technology as a better means for assessing students. With school computer labs and public library computer labs, all students have access to computers at some point. Computer software can aide in the instruction of all students, with or without special needs. I can not praise enough all the free shareware software out there. OpenOffice, and Google documents are just a few that equal the playing field for students.

I plan on using excel generated quizzes and knowledge queries. I plan on allowing for electronic submission of lab reports and projects. I will utilize computer presentation software and more in my classroom. Technology is here and we need to keep learning so that we can continue to educate or students of the present, if not future.