Connie
Sylvanus
LS521 Sp02
Teacher
Sites
Instructional Elective
Teacher Sites
Although the search for teacher sites
was somewhat challenging I found two very interesting teacher constructed web
sites. The first teacher web site that I examined was constructed by Mary Kreul who teachers second grade at
This website is so fantastic it is
extremely hard to find anything to recommend improving. One thought I had that might be an area of
concern is the number of links contained on this page. A few of these links could be combined to
make the site a little less overwhelming.
Another recommendation could be to move the links in a less linear
manner to make the page more exciting.
The other recommendation I would make again deals with the appearance of
the site. At present this site has a blue
and white lined paper as the background.
This background perhaps could be done in a variety of colors to present
a brighter appearance.
Obviously because I choose only to
discuss the appearance of this website to critique demonstrates that there are
many excellent points to commend this site on.
This site was constructed using student work. Many of the drawing and writing of this class
were displayed. I am so impressed! Parents of these students must be so thrilled
to see the children’s work online. This
also is a way for the parents to track the progress of the children’s
work. Another strong point of this site
is that this site presents much information for the parents. Posted for the parents at this site are a
weekly newsletter, a yearly calendar, and the curriculum for this grade. For newcomers to the area, there are pictures
of the school as well as student generated drawings of the rooms in this
school. This website also contains links
for the students and teachers. This site
was truly magnificent and shows a ton of work by this teacher.
The
website for this awesome teacher created web page is
http://www.geocities.com/marykreul/2Kschool/
The second site I visited was another
second grade teacher created web site. The
teacher’s name is Mrs. Hicks and this classroom is located in
There are several ideas I have as
recommendations. This website includes
information about student projects but there was no current information about
day to day activities of the students. I
think it would be helpful to include a weekly newsletter at this site. There was also many links to commercial sites
which were great, but I feel parents would appreciate more student created
material. The other issue was that the
webpage had nothing current on it. Most
of the items displayed were from December and January. I feel this probably is one of the biggest
challenges in maintaining a website is keeping it current.
Many aspects about this site were
impressive. The website was colorful and
attractively arranged. The student work
displayed was very impressive projects.
The links provided on this site are ones that most second grade families
would enjoy. One more aspect of this
site that I enjoyed was the pictures and information about the school as a
whole. This web site can be seen at www.cape.k12.mo.us/blanchard/hicks/index.html.
Web sites constructed by teachers can
be a powerful tool in communicating with parents and administrators. In the future there may not be a weekly
newsletters coming home but a website for parents to visit to obtain
information and view student work.