Teacher Homepage

This is not only a must have for ever Teacher, it is a must that every Teacher uses their homepage to its potential as a source of information for students and parents. Teacher Homepages come in all shapes and sizes, some are very formal and mostly text and others are truly works of art having sounds, graphics, and animations. Some even have links to Web Pages that have nothing to do with education and are based on the Teacher's interests. Regardless of what COULD be put on a teacher webpage there are some items that really SHOULD be included.

The first question most teachers will ask about this process is how do I create a webpage?

The answer differs depending on what technology is available. Most Schools should have their own webpage. If the school does not, then maybe the school system or district or town hall does. Ask whoever runs the Site if you can have some space and create a website that has a link to their site. If you can they will tell you what program(s) the system supports in terms of website creation. They should be able to let you know what types of things sounds, pictures, videos that can be supported by the website. Because there are many different website publishing programs I will not go into detail into the creation of the website itself.

If there is no local website that will let you put up your site, the next step I would take is to search the net for places that would allow you to create a site. Some Webpages will give you some space for free that would be the best option of course. Other places will charge you or ask you to advertise on your site. I would not allow advertisements on a teacher webpage as it is not ethical. Again these places should have instruction on how to create a webpage, worst case scenario would be making a webpage using Word and by saving a file as HTML. Learning how to write in HTML would be helpful but it is also time consuming and not at all necessary.

After you have found a place to host your site, and learned the necessary webpage authoring system you need to make your website, you need to create your site's content.

Things that the Site MUST have:

1: Title and introduction that tells people who you are and the purpose of the site.

2: Class descriptions, expectations. You know that thing you hand out at the start of the year.

3: Contact information: school phone number, your extension, voicemail, e-mail, and anything else you feel is important

4: Some type of Calendar that has both days of note for the school (half days, vacations, conferences) and for your classes (field trips, midterms). You could do this as simply a list of days that have something going on.

5: The last thing that I feel your website should have is some sort of syllabus or list of due dates. This may need to be updated if you plan by unit. If you can get your assignments posted then not only can students check what they need to do, but it also allows parents to see what the class is doing. This may prevent those phone calls from concerned parents whose children always say they have no homework, if they can go to the website and see what is assigned and when things are due. This last "must have" may be easier in some situations than others depending on how easy it is to change or add things to your website. Another thing you can add is actual instruction and assignment sheets that can be printed out in case students have lost or misplaced theirs. Again the usefulness of this must be weighed against how easy it is to change your website.

Things you might want to put on your website.

1: Biographical information. Let people or students know who you are and what you do. Include especially any school activities you are involved with. This might be a place to make a kind of resume listing past awards and accomplishments if you are not the humble type.

2: Review games or sheets. If a test is coming up and students want to study you could post review materials on your site that way even if they forget to bring anything home to study they have access to something they can go over. See Quiz Games for online games that could be made to work on a website.

3: Links to other educational websites. Both general such as historychannel.com, whitehouse.gov, nytimes.com, Nationalgeographic.com or you can make links that correspond to various units that you teach. These can serve as both resources for your students on projects as well as the basis for web assignments. Example Hot Links.

4: If you are also a coach or are involved in another school activity you can put information relating to that up on your webpage such as schedule, scores, or anything else.

5: Sounds, graphics, animations, videos. Pay attention to copyrighted material, but there are many little "extras" that will give your webpage the feel that you want.

6: You can put material on the webpage that is not school or class related but if you are running the site out of a school or town system you may want to ask about this first. I have seen teacher websites that have little games or have sections on subjects of the teacher's interest but not something that he or she teachers. One example would be a teacher home page that has links or information on pirates when that teacher never deals with pirates in their classrooms.

I personally feel that a teacher homepage is currently one the most effective uses of technology in a school setting today. The amount of information and help that it can provide to parents and students can resolve many problems and questions before they arise. Every teacher should look into creating a homepage as soon as possible.

Here is an example of the 7^th grade social studies webpage at Mansfield Middle School in CT.