Classroom Web Pages

Objective: Students will create an annotated bibliography of web sites that offer free home pages for educators.

Objective: Students will determine the quality of the web sites found by developing a rating system.

Introduction: More and more families are hooked to the Internet these days. This allows the classroom teacher an easy and effective way of communicating with parents on a daily basis. Using the Internet for communication is especially nice if you have a parent who does a lot of traveling, or a student who has grandparents who are out of state, but wish to play an active role in their grandchild's schooling.

In the beginning, you would have had to know html to develop a web page, then they invented web page software that did not require you to use html. Now, it is even easier with the online templates that are available. There are a plethora of site out there that offer free web site space for teachers, but not all of them are great.

You will have to take into consideration what each site has to offer. Does it automatically have advertising on your web page? Or does it promise that it is advertisement free? Can you use the site forever, or is it only free for a period of time? These are just some of the questions you will need to investigate.

Activity: Use several search engines to find free web space for educators and visit as many different ones as you can. While your are doing this, compare each of the sites and try to find ones that you would recommend.

Assignment: Develop an annotated bibliography of at least 5 free educator web space sites. Develop your own rating system (stars, hearts, smiley faces, etc.) and scale and rate each site you list. You must include an explanation of your scale! Be sure to include the URL at the end of each annotation.

Resources: You will want to use a search engine like Google or Yahoo to do your search. Be sure that, whatever search engine you use, you try various combinations of words in your search to find what you are looking for.

Rubric:

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Annotation The annotations are incomplete and are missing the URL at the end of the description. The annotations are brief and do not help the reader determine its usefulness. The URL is not found. The five annotations are complete and informative. They are well written and allow the reader to determine their usefulness. It contains the URL at the end of the description.

Rating Scale No rating scale has been developed or used for this project. The student has designed a rating scale, but there is not description of how to read it. The student has developed an effective rating scale and has provided an explanation of how to read it. The scale is used for each annotation.

Design The web site is hard to follow and the placement of text and graphics are jumbled. The web site is readable, but congested. The spacing and font size make it a strain to look at. The web site is easy to read and not congested. It is user friendly and pleasing to the eye.

Other Resources:

http://www.teacherweb.com/ (Teacher Web) - offers free web space for teachers

http://www.schoolnotes.com/ (School Notes) - offers free web space for educators and has links to teacher sites that were created using their site.

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Annotation	The annotations are incomplete and are missing the URL at the end of the description.	The annotations are brief and do not help the reader determine its usefulness. The URL is not found.	The five annotations are complete and informative. They are well written and allow the reader to determine their usefulness. It contains the URL at the end of the description.
Rating Scale	No rating scale has been developed or used for this project.	The student has designed a rating scale, but there is not description of how to read it.	The student has developed an effective rating scale and has provided an explanation of how to read it. The scale is used for each annotation.
Design	The web site is hard to follow and the placement of text and graphics are jumbled.	The web site is readable, but congested. The spacing and font size make it a strain to look at.	The web site is easy to read and not congested. It is user friendly and pleasing to the eye.