Transcript 2 - Why a Website

Communication & Accountability
Why a Website and other tools for
Communication with your clients
Michael Perry
National Board Certified Business
Teacher East Paulding High School
Adjunct Business Professor,
Kennesaw State University
Draft
WWW.Pdragons.Com
• Teacher Created
Website
– Post project sheets for
students/parents
– Calendar of class
activities (online lesson
plans) for
students/parents
www.pdragons.com
WWW.Pdragons.Com
Main blackboard graphic
with today’s assignment
• Announcements posted
on main blackboard
• Daily quote to teach
character education
– Opening sponge activity
that trains students to use
the site
www.pdragons.com
www.intheknowbio.com
• Intheknowbio.com is a site created by one of
EPHS science teachers
• Good example of a quality teacher created
website
www.pdragons.com
Email
• Email address posted on site
• Email is filtered to keep student/parent
contact separate from University student
contact and from personal mail
• Filters help file the correspondence as it is
received
www.pdragons.com
Is it worth the effort to develop a site?
• It’s necessary in this era of accountability for
teachers to have a classroom site, and to post
their pages among those of the school or district
site.
• The name of the school or district and its logo
should appear on all pages to provide evidence of
an official connection and a unifying element
among all teachers’ sites at the school.
• While this is ideal – the question still remains
especially if your district does not require it or will
not really support it?
• YES! ! ! !
www.pdragons.com
Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in
education
District Support
• Sadly, when district sites, for whatever
reason, do not include classroom teacher
web pages, teachers often resort to other
service providers—sometimes having to use
their own funds to pay.
www.pdragons.com
Design Considerations
• Menus should be used that include links to
plug-ins for viewing certain content, such as
PDF and audio/video files.
• Make sure to alert users to any pop-ups
being used on the site.
• Text should be presented on the middle 5070 percent of the page in order to improve
reading speed.
• Always avoid content that flashes, flickers,
or blinks.
www.pdragons.com
Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in
education
Design Considerations Do’s and
Don’ts
• Pages should display the date on which they were
last updated and include contact information. It’s
helpful to add a page URL at the bottom of pages
for those who print out content to have a record of
its source, but this feature is not as commonly
found.
• Teachers should be wary of posting
advertisements on their pages that are unsuitable
for students, and not to link to any sites with
inappropriate advertisements.
• Keep our students in mind at all times.
www.pdragons.com
Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in
education
Design Specifics
• Avoid razzle-dazzle multimedia effects, as
they really add nothing to learning and often
detract from learners’ information
processing capabilities.
• A site’s content must be accessible, easily
navigated, easily read, and credibly written.
• Users should need only a few clicks to find
information.
www.pdragons.com
Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in
education
Methods for Teachers to get on the Web
Free or reasonably priced web
hosting services geared for teachers
Draft
Teacherweb.com
• Teacher Web, http://teacherweb.com/
• The fee for a TeacherWeb® site is $27 per
year
• Icon driven, but they can be annoying to
view
www.pdragons.com
School Notes.com
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School notes http://www.schoolnotes.com/
Ad supported
Good online documentation
Several colleagues use this service
www.pdragons.com
Schoolrack.com
• Schoolrack.com, http://schoolrack.com/
• Recommended and widely used
• Easy to get a good professional design
www.pdragons.com
Inspiringteachers.com
• Inspiring Teachers -http://www.inspiringteachers.com/community
/webpages.html
• Offers free web pages for teachers. A
membership includes 20MB of space, a free
e-mail account, site-builder assistance, file
management, and tools to promote the site.
www.pdragons.com
Quia.com
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Quia.com, www.quia.com
Same company for online quizzes
$49 per year for both quizzes and website
Create classes and track quiz results
Create class pages for communicating with
students
Maintain an online schedule and calendar
Upload images and audio clips
Copy and modify any of Quia's two million
activities to suit your own needs
Share your activities with students, friends,
colleagues, anyone in the world!
www.pdragons.com
Classhomework
• Classhomework.com
• What is ClassHomework?
• We offer a place for students to access their
teacher's website, pick up their assignments
and link to great homework help.
• Teachers build the site at
http://www.teacherwebsite.com/
www.pdragons.com