Developing A Homepage for your Classroom

Chapter 12

Developing a homepage for your classroom is part of learning and applying the knowledge that new literacies have to offer. Teachers and students frequently visit web pages with the intention of informing themselves about a particular subject. Creating a web page for the classes that you teach to keep your students informed about activities that will take place in the education setting could be an excellent informative tool. It is portable and students can access it from home. A well-established and well-kept web page is another way of helping students learn. It enables all students, even those that are not part of your roster, to benefit from the instructional materials and links to information resources. Creating a homepage also helps parents to keep up to date with what is happening in the classroom. In addition, it gives a positive image of professionalism to the public, one that shows that we are keeping up with technology and incorporating it in our instruction.

One teacher’s example showed how easy it was to create a webpage. This teacher would devote one page for each unit that she taught. She would create links that would be useful for that unit and included them on that unit’s page. What makes this so great is that she can go back and use the same units the next year without having to do a lot of work. Of course, she would always examine the sites that she provided links to ensure the safety of her students and add new ones to be up to date with the information. She would publish their work on the homepage for parents and others who are interested to view the students’ accomplishments. This teacher would also receive comments by other teachers who liked how she taught a certain unit and it gave them ideas to use. This provides opportunities for collaboration by all involved in a students’ instruction.

This chapter also discussed useful information on where to find good examples of classroom homepages. One way to do so is to go to any search engine and type in keywords such as Ms., Mr., or Mrs.; classroom; homepage etc… If looking for particular grade levels simply add in that grade level when doing the search. It is a good idea to explore as many as you can to get a good idea of ways they can be used, links that can be useful and ideas from other teachers that maybe we had not thought of before. Weblogs are also becoming a useful tool for creating homepages. Teachers that I know use Blogger, for example, to post the daily work and homework.

Creating a homepage is very simple. All you really need is to know how to use word processing skills along with how to cut and paste. You can use a web editor to create the basic look of your homepage and then all you need to do is upload it on a server and obtain a URL (web address). There are some useful tutorials available on the web on how to create your own webpage and these are listed in this chapter. It is very important, though, to remember to use open source material to avoid using “ illegal” material when “borrowing” images, text, etc… from another website we may see and like on the internet. Most webpage owners have copyrights in place, which would require us to obtain permission to use anything they may have on their site.

Last November, I created my own webpage. It is located in wikispaces.com. The name is tiempoparaespanol.wikispaces.com. I call it my wiki. For me, it is the best thing that I could have done, especially this year when I have to teach middle and high school. I travel to seven different classrooms to teach seven different Spanish levels. As you may have perceived, I needed to come up with an easy and practical way of managing my classes. Most importantly, I needed to organize myself to keep a record of all activities done in class in each class for those students who are absent, to post links to important activities, to post task or projects, to display students’ work since I do not have a place where to do it, and much more. My wiki has several pages: homepage, countries of Latin America page, about me page, one page for each class, my favorites websites page, the school website page, and the hall of fame page (here I post students’ work.) Each one of these pages is very important and I update them regularly. Having this webpage allows me to have access to all my classes’ information from any where in the world. In fact, I was sick for several days L and all I had to do was to post all the assignments that I wanted the substitute to do with them. Of course, my substitute was tech educated J One of my favorite sections is the Spanish IV page because it has links to blogs they have created in Spanish. I love my high tech students!

Finally, the different items you put on your webpage may depend on your needs. Some may include: an area for parents and others to send email, a place to publish students’ work, homework assignments and due dates, links to other sites. You may want to create a link to your name on the webpage so that when different ones click on your name it gives them your email address so that they may easily get in touch with you. Developing, utilizing, and regularly updating your classroom homepage allows you to show that you are implementing the new literacies that are required for the ever-evolving technologies that are available to our education system. You are also letting them know that you will continue to progress in this area. Anyone who accesses your homepage will readily see the evidence of this. Moreover, your students will appreciate the fact that you take the time to keep them informed. Some have even asked me if they could join my wiki; I have told them that they will create their own in a collaborative way. I will think of something very soon.