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Creating a Classroom Website

1/12/2014

5 Comments

 
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Expectations for today's classroom teachers are high. There is enormous pressure to meet benchmarks set by the new Common Core standards, to increase student performance on standardized tests, to create a positive, learning-rich environment, and to do so with often dwindling resources and support.  


Creating a classroom website to organize and manage your classroom, while certainly not a panacea, can go a long way towards helping teachers stay on top of the myriad of responsibilities, learning outcomes, and challenges that they are faced with.  Having a well put together classroom website can save time with lesson planning, parent communication, and can help teachers see the bigger picture of how their curriculum comes together.  

The goal of this post is to share some excellent examples of classroom websites as well as give advice on how to get your own classroom website started.  With the help of reader Dale Borgeson, I've put together a short list of exemplar classroom sites to check out:


Mrs. McDavid's Class

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Mrs. McDavid's site is a perfect example of how a classroom website can help teachers stay organized and on top of their curriculum.  The page is easy to navigate (even for 3rd graders) but contains a ton of useful information, links, and learning resources.  Her "students" section is particularly well created!


Mrs. Connell's Class

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Mrs. Connell's page is an wonderful example of how a class site can help extend learning beyond the classroom.  She has a huge variety of enrichment activities that students can engage in when they're not in the classroom.  On top of that, Mrs. Connell's site has regular updates on classroom happenings to help keep parents (and administrators) in the loop!


Now that we've seen some examples, and you're ready to start creating your own classroom site, what's the next step?  Well, your district may already have a service that you're required to use, in which case, maybe you can get some good ideas from the sites above.  

If you don't have a required service, here's a great article from Dale Borgeson on how to get started.  Alternatively, Scholastic has a solid article as well which recommends using Weebly to create your site (it's what I use for the Roundup!).  


For me, I'm also a big fan of Wix, the service is free, easy to use, and you can create modern websites incredibly quickly.  And our school uses Moodle which is a free, open-source course management system.

Plus, if you're looking for some more examples to help get the ideas flowing, check out these teacher-created sites for more!
  • Mrs. Frazier's Class​
  • Mrs. Renz's Class
  • Mr. Coley's Class​
  • Mr. Brewer's Class
Finally, here are some additional resources to check out when you're ready to get started!

  • 5 Reasons You Should Build a Class Site Now
  • The Who, What, Where, Why, When of Setting Up a Class Website
  • Technology - Website Creation 
  • Creating an Effective Classroom Website​
  • 10 Tips for an A+ Classroom Website
5 Comments
Dale Borgeson link
1/12/2014 02:00:49 am

Thanks Mike for the great information. This should be a great resource for teachers at any level. Here are some additional links if people are moving forward with their classroom website: (I'm not sure if these will appear as direct links.)

5 Reasons You Should Build a Class Site Now
The Who, What, Where, Why, When of Setting Up a Class Website
Create an Impressive Website in Under an Hour
Technology - Website Creation
Creating an Effective Classroom Website
Keep Parents in the Loop with a Class Website
10 Tips for an A+ Classroom Website

Reply
Hannah
7/27/2018 01:18:28 pm

I was wondering where you start to make a website. What would I type in to get me started? Was it Weebly or something along those line?

Thanks

Reply
Mike
7/27/2018 01:28:57 pm

Hi Hannah,

Great question! I would definitely recommend Weebly or Wix or Wordpress. Also feel free to email me (mike.karlin(at)gmail.com) and I'm happy to provide additional feedback!

Mike

Reply
Kathy Klink-Zeitz
3/15/2019 01:13:39 pm

Please update your site. Your first example: Mr. Schrader's home page great write up & I was excited to show it off to my students as an example when they come back after spring break. But either the link is broken or the site has been taken off!!

Reply
Mike
3/16/2019 10:41:17 am

Thanks Kathy! The dead links have been removed!

Reply



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