Teacher Made Sites

It was quite difficult to find the right combination of words to get an effective search for teacher made websites. I had the most luck using the Yahoo Search Engine with the keywords list of teacher home pages. This led me to a bunch of school websites that listed their own faculty course outlines, but there were also some useful sites. I’m still not sure what the best route is to take to find these home pages, there are some where the user can register to be on a list. Maybe that’s the best way to receive the information…

Mrs. Buchel’s Kindergarten class –

I thought this site was just great! It looks really inviting from the first page! This is Mrs. Buchel’s Kindergarten class’s website. This website is nice because it doesn’t include any information that is of no use to the visitors. You can tell that this educator is enthusiastic about teaching, the page just looks fun! The topics to search are areas that are of most interest to parents

· The Photos of Us and Meet Mrs. Buchel categories make the website more personal and will help parents feel more comfortable about where they are sending their kids for what could be the first time

· The Weekly Letter and Homework categories are important to include because this allows parents to see what their children are doing and learning in school. Children at this age can be forgetful or unclear when asked about their school day.

· A unique addition to the website is the Great Links and Ideas for Teachers and Parents categories. This can help parents who want or need to supplement their child’s learning.

· The Fun Stuff To Make and FAQ categories was smart because I think that can save the teacher time and it shows that the teacher is thinking about her students and their parents outside of the classroom

I’m not sure what I could suggest to Mrs. Buchel considering my limited experience and knowledge of the internet.

· Maybe she would like to include a page for the kindergarteners in her class. Something dedicated to them, in case they are becoming and are able to be user friendly with computers

· Also, she may want to create a different link so that her website isn’t missed on a search, if she wants other teachers to visit

Easy to say I know, but if I had to make recommendation…

Welcome to Mrs. Hall’s 1st Grade –

This website was colorful and fun. It highlights Mrs. Hall’s first and/or second grade activities in different subject areas, and features her award recognitions as well. The website contains valuable information for teachers and parents alike for educating their children. The material will be useful them.

· The website has a lot of different subject areas of interest to look at. Activites, lessons, and questions are addressed here. This variety ensures that the visitor will have many options to choose from.

· The pages themselves are aesthetically pleasing to the visitor, which shows that she obviously took a lot of time putting this website together

· I like the inspirational quotes that appear at the top of the page, that’s a nice touch.

· This page is a good link to other teacher web pages when you click under the Visit First Grade Classrooms category.

There are some things that I would do differently…

· In some ways, the site seems too busy. The information is scattered all over the page with no sense of order to it.

· If she is interested in giving hints to teachers or being a vehicle to other teacher websites (which it seems is the case) she should include that information in a separate place.

· There is no information about her class and what they are doing. The only thing listed is in tiny print at the bottom of the site, and that just lists monthly activities.

I wasn’t sure whether this website was created for her students and parents use, or for the internet users. If the distinction was made a bit clearer it would make navigating the web page easier.