6 Class sites, Websites and Professional Efficiency

The school website I visited was the Stevenson school. This school requires teachers to regularly update their individual class web pages for K-8^th grade. The grade level I decided to click on was first grade. In this class website, the teacher has a section on classroom news where she updates the parents what the kids are learning and what they are going to learn next. She also talks about the activities the children are doing. Another great thing about this class site is the tab where you can see their daily schedules. It gives the parents a chance to see what their kids are doing and when. My favorite part about this class site is the gallery tab. This teacher takes pictures of the kids doing the activities and puts it on the website for the parents. If I was a parent I would love to be able to see my kid learning and having fun doing it! You can check out their classroom page by clicking here.

There are many ways I envision myself using technology in the classroom. In chapter 7, it talks a lot about word processors. Word processors allow teachers to create calendars, newsletters, flyers, class stationary, and classroom websites. I definitely think I would use word processors to accomplish my professional responsibilities more effectively. I like the idea of class websites. I think parents would greatly appreciate it as well. To have a site that tells what the kids are learning, what they will learn helps the parents become more involved. Productivity tools are vital in the classroom today. This includes computer based tools as well. Google calendar would be a great way keep my lesson plans on task and make sure I am covering all parts of the subject I am teaching. Using technology based tools to plan a lesson is a great way to make my professional responsibilities more efficient.

I actually enjoyed working on the Web Resource Evaluation. I learned how to verify if a website was credible or not and what defines a reliable site. Another part I enjoyed about the web resource eval was being able to work in groups. My group collaborated efficiently and we each contributed an equal part to the assignment. The only thing I disliked about the assignment was the website we used to create it. I didn’t really understand how to navigate it very well and I easily got confused by its layout. If I were to do this again I would probably want to make the rubrics through Word. I do like how the whole assignment is set up on wiki, even though I struggled with it. I think that in the future I will definitely create a rubric for my students to use on the websites they get information from. I want my students to understand the difference between a credible source and not so credible source. By teaching students to spot out criteria that make a website reliable from a young age, it will help them later on when they have to write research papers or other assignments of the same sort.