Week #1 548 Journal

Where I went/What I did:

     This week I was able to visit some new classroom websites.  Many of these sites I had visited before, but I found some new ones as well.  One website that I really liked was called TeachersFirst (http://teachersfirst.com/index.cfm).  This site was organized nicely and offered many great resources for teachers. One of the resources that I liked was the Featured Sites box.  They give their readers a quick glance of suggested sites and what grade level they are appropriate for.  I liked that it is right there  on the homepage and easy to see quickly.   As I was reviewing all the different sites I noticed that some of the sites were not as well organized as others.  Some of the ones I visited had way to much information on the homepage which made it difficult to find what you were looking for.  There was one site that had so much information on one page I still am not sure what that site had to offer.

What I Leaned:

     As well as visiting the websites I also read some great articles this week.  In the first reading The Internet and Web Design for the Modern Teacher  I learned about the two different types of websites: instructional and informational.  Most classroom websites are informational because they contain information about procedures, homework, news from the classroom, other information relating to the class.  The other type of website is the instructional sites, which are classroom websites that have "learning activities" build into them.  According to the reading very few teachers do this well on their websites.  I would like to learn some strategies to be able to do this well on my own website.  Would this be difficult to do since I teach first graders?  In thinking about this question I think about the second article I read Children's Websites: Usability Issues In Designing for Kids.  This article conducted a study that showed that kids today are "much more experienced in using computers and Internet."  Kids are being exposed to technology at a much younger age in today's time.  So does this mean it should be easier for teachers to create learning activities for their websites, even if they teach the younger children?

What I decided about my website:

     As I was reviewing all the different websites this week I got some great ideas for my own website that I will be creating.  I would really like for my home page to be very organized, not too much information on one page, colorful and an easy to read font, and tabs that will lead visitors to the different pages of my site.  The article 10 Tips for an A+ Classroom Website listed some great ideas that I want on my site.  These include creating a place for parents to contact the teacher,  a place to acess homework files, the classroom blog, and the daily schedule.  I want it to be a site that parents, students, and other teachers would want to visit.

My Plans for the Week:

     This week I want to continue to visit some more websites and get a better idea of what I want to do on my own.  I am going to continue to work on my blog and become more familiar with its features.  This may be something I want to use for my classroom in the future.