Education Web Design

The internet is overflowing with remarkable and fun “games” to reinforce student learning.   Each day, as I presented new skills, I quickly added a site where that skill could be practiced at home that evening.   The students loved it and became quite competitive.  I also had opportunities at school where students could go online to practice the current skills of the week.  This game, MATH SPLAT, would be a game that was posted on the day we explored adding and subtracting fractions.   Isn’t that more fun than taking home a worksheet?

I often posted Tutorials for students to review at home, or I may present them in class on the screen.    It was great to be able to give preview time for a new skill I would be teaching, or for parents to look at ahead of time.   Then the students felt more confident and understood the new skill better.  Then it could be reviewed again at home the following day.  Here is a good example of how my third graders were introduced to the new skill of borrowing.  Trust me, they would rather listen to this explanation with the magic pencil than to me using chalk with my back turned to the class!

Parents appreciated being able to look online to know exactly when the next test was coming and what skills they should be reviewing to prepare for that test.  Here is a post to help students prepare at home for a chapter math test:

Our next chapter math test will be this Thursday afternoon.  These are the skills that will be tested on that day:

Rounding to the nearest hundred

Estimating with benchmark numbers

Comparing numbers and ranking by size

Rounding to the nearest thousand

Rounding to the nearest ten

Less than and greater than signs

Reading a bar graph an interpreting the data

Getting information from a table

This leaves no question about what skills need to be perfected.   Parents love this.

When my students accomplished our classroom goal of memorizing multiplication facts they were able to “graduate.”  Putting their picture on our bulletin board and blog with their graduation hat on provided a real incentive to get busy and memorize those facts.  Once their picture and paragraph were published the other students congratulated and raved about their success.   Grandparents and aunts and uncles were alerted and they left messages as well.   What a good feeling, and again, students were encouraged and praised for academics!

Here is an example of reminders I could quickly post just to help everyone remember what to take care of.   Lives are very busy and parents appreciated these quick online reminders.

Please remember to return library books tomorrow.  Also, if you haven’t returned your conference slips, tomorrow would be a good day to get those in as well.  Tomorrow school will dismiss at 2:07.  If there are any new volunteers for writing lab on Thursday at 1:25, please let me know.

Parents could post right on the message whether they would be coming to the writing lab.   If other questions arise, they can be posted right there and the answers may benefit others as well.

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On Backpack Night it is always exciting to come into your new classroom and meet your friends that will be in your new room.   I like to take a picture of each family and give out a card with our web address on it.   When the students get home families are posted on the website because it can be done in a matter of minutes.  Both parents and students like to know who the other families are that will be spending the year together.

I am a retired teacher with 30 years of teaching experience.  During the last few years of my teaching career my classroom blog became a very big part of what happened in every child’s learning process.  The use of the blog brought to our classroom many  learning experiences, recognition, communication and a general connection that we all cared about each other as friends and excited learners.  Soon parents and grandparents were leaving comments on the blog, providing the strong message that “I love you and I am so proud of what you are learning.”   The blog kept everyone informed daily about what we were studying and also provided a place where students could practice a newly learned skill at home.  Take a look at what a blog can provide for your classroom with just one small entry a day.

Preparation is just as important as getting the perfect design for your new website. The way your website is organized can determine if your school district website or teacher website is going to be successful or a bitter failure. Most of the clients we work with want a new website because their current website is unorganized and information is buried deep within the site. Many older school district websites are also built with static HTML. If your school doesn’t have a person comfortable with updating those types of sites you will be left with a web pages full of buried information and broken links. Here are some steps in preparing your new website.

Start with a blank slate

Usually old websites still have accessible information that is out dated and no longer relevant. In some instances plan your new website layout as if you don’t have a website currently. This will help you determine what information is really important to your visitors.

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