Carrye Campbell

SLM 521

Spring 2005

Teacher Made Sites

This is a fantastic website created by Mrs. Perkins, a first grade teacher. The site is designed for parent and teacher use. The site features links to pictures from past fieldtrips, the Flat Stanley Project, and templates for vocabulary flashcards.

Commendations:

The entire Web site is very simple, clean, and pleasing to look at. I think it is great how the topic/content of each page is written on a chalkboard at the top, which really unifies the site.
The only background color is white, with a pale yellow column of links to the left. Any more color than this that would detract from all of the fantastic, high-quality photographs displayed throughout the site.
I absolutely love how Mrs. Perkins features images of student art works on her site, and she is not even the art teacher!

Recommendations:

This is very difficult – the site is near perfect! I did notice that there is a lot of empty white space to the right of the images and text. Possibly Mrs. Perkins could widen her columns or add a pale yellow bar to the right side.
The site could feature a link for parents about homework or upcoming projects.
Though the site is very user-friendly, it does not feature anything specifically for children. A link to interactive websites for kids might be a nice addition.

http://www.mrsperkins.com/

Mrs. Lednumπs Fifth Grade Class

Mrs. Lednumπs homepage explains that this site has been created for students, parents, and teachers to provide a positive link between home and school in a fun way. The site features spelling/vocab lists, links to a thesaurus & dictionary, a great rainforest Webquest, and a parents page with helpful links and information.

Commendations:

The entire site maintains a unified feel by being designed in the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, as well as white.
By using patterned page borders, the eye is successfully drawn to the solid areas that contain text.
I think including a Classroom Wish List is great. It lets the parents know what supplies are needed and saves the teacher from having to buy/find these extra materials.

Recommendations:

The home page plays the instrumental version of Colors of the Wind from the Disney movie Pocahontas. Like many other people, I dislike musical Web pages. If Mrs. Lednum really likes this feature, she should add a button to toggle the music off should viewers want to.
The font used to describe the site on the home page is a script, which is not very readable. I would suggest replacing it with an easy-to-read font such as Arial or Comic Sans.
My least favorite part of this site are the colored circles that trail behind the curser as you move the mouse around on the home page. They make the page much too busy and actually slow down the loading of the page.

http://www.ccboe.com/teachers/klednum/

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