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Web Presence Overview Lesson

Site: REMC 8 / Kent ISD Moodle VLE
Course: Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning
Book: Web Presence Overview Lesson
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Saturday, April 20, 2024, 12:32 AM

Description

This book explores options for creating a web presence and ideas about what you can include and how to optimize its usefulness.

Table of contents

Web Presence Overview

Teachers have always needed a place to put their stuff, but now it is easier than ever to put your

stuff online so that you and others can access it more readily without having to bug you! You can

use yours to do the following and more:


  • A place for your stuff! (organize and store)
  • Anytime access (students, parents, staff)
    • Single point of contact
    • Save time (less tracking down or sharing resources)
    • Expand learning opportunities
    • Help absent kids and Special Ed.
  • Ability to include multimedia, interactive activities, and links
  • Showcase student work (and your own work)
  • Do cool stuff!

This module will provide you with information about some of the options out there as well as what you can do with your site.

What to Include and Hints

It can be hard to know what to include on your site. Here is a list of what I think are essential elements and below are some options that could be useful and cool:

Essentials
  • Schedule of class events
    • Can be done in a table, calendar, or other ways
    • Include links to handouts, sites when possible
  • Intro to you and contact info
  • Links to additional resources
  • Representations of learning (pics, student work, etc.)

*HINT: Use this website review form to check for quality

Other Options
  • Embed objects (Quizlet study tools, Presentations, YouTube and other videos, Twitter Feed, Survey Using Google Forms, Calendar, and more)
    • To embed, you must first copy the embed code from the item you want to embed. This is usually found in the share features of the item
    • In your site, turn on the html editor (usually an icon that says html or <>)
    • Paste the embed code where you want the object to be (can be confusing, try embedding before adding other stuff)
    • Most website creators have widgets for adding html
  • Create collaborative pages/sites for students or colleagues

Hints

  • Drive people to your site so it gets used
    • Include a link to your site in all correspondence (email signature, business card, etc.)
    • Make it part of your class lessons when applicable
    • Tell students to get missing work from the site
    • Post the URL in your room or where people will see it
  • Keep the design simple! Snazzy backgroundss and flashing images may look cool, but they are distracting.
  • Ensure easy navigation. Use a sidebar or navigation tabs to make sure a visitor can get from page to page no matter where they are in your site
  • Update frequently. It may take a while to get in the habit, but if it takes you a week to post, that's seven days people couldn't access current resources.
    • Try to work in 5-10 minutes each day.
    • Don't try to include everything at first.
       

Blogs

Blog is short for "web-log", basically a digital journal. They were originally started as tools for people to write about various topics and personal experiences with regular entries. Now they can do much more with sidebar widgets, multimedia, and interactive elements. Common blogs for educators include Blogger and Edublogs.

In their simplest form, blogs are a display of entries with some stuff on the sides (links to resources/ pages, archives of past entries, etc.). They can also be customized in complex ways with multiple pages and elements. Blogs are good classroom sites for those who want a simple way to share and communicate. They are not as customizable as websites and typically cannot do as much.




Wikis

These are online sites that are more basic in design features but can be used as a teacher webpage and/or a place for students and teachers to collaborate. Two excellent wiki sites are Wikispaces and PBWorks. You might think of wikis as a series of advanced word processing pages that can be interlinked and used for classes to create, share, communicate, and collaborate. The video below provides a simple overview:

This link takes you to a list of educational wikis you can peruse (link)

Websites

These are personalized homepages that can house your online resources. Websites differ from wikis in that they generally have more design options available, and they are different from blogs because they are not centered around journal-like entries.

The easiest options for educators are probably Weebly, and Shutterfly. (*Note the links to these are for the education versions and may require you to use a school email for verification. They both have non-edu versions available as well.)

Other options include Google Sites (works well w/ other Google Apps but can be non-user-friendly) and WIX.

Other Links

Learning Management Systems

Learning Management Systems (LMS) include tools like Moodle, Edmodo (social learning network), or Blackboard. These provide more robust features like assessment tools and are designed to be a central part of the classroom, typically used for blended or online courses; however, they can function in other ways as well.

Some of the other benefits of these include added security with required logins, self-grading quizzes and data reporting, conducting discussion forums, assigning and collecting work, and the ability to form groups.

Some downsides include difficulty with users remembering their login info, more skill and time required for creating/ updating/ managing, and in some cases the reliability or cost of the service.

Other Links

District Online Systems

District Online Systems, or Online Infrastructure Systems (OIS) refer to purchased products that school districts use for their online process. Check with your district to find out if they have an OIS and if you have access to it. Many school districts subscribe to a paid service such as Schoology, SchoolCenter and Foxbright. These sites provide a standard framework in which educators must follow, and in most instances don't require the user to know programming or html code. Subscribers of these sites are looking for standardization for their organization.

*Text taken from 21 Things for Teachers site: http://www.21things4teachers.net/2---face-of-your-classroom.html