Websites

This assignment was not the first time that I have created a website; however, this is the first time that I have truly understood what I was doing and how to create it.  I got excited about my website because it is a tool that I know I will use when I begin teaching.  I had a math teacher in high school that had his own website, and we used it quite frequently.  He had a lot of helpful material on his site, and it was all at our fingertips.  I knew if I ever became a teacher, I would want to have a site for my classroom as well; my only problem was that I did not know how to create one.  The one we created in technology discovery was very complicated.  I felt like I was creating the site from scratch, and I may have been.  With Google Sites, it was very easy to make a website.  Once you got the first page created, it was downhill from there.  The website runs very smoothly and is easy to navigate.  I had trouble deciding what I wanted to write on my site, but that will become easier once I graduate and get into my own classroom.  I will not have to search for a supplies list and stuff like that because I will already have one.  This was a great experience for me, and I look forward to making a new one for a real class one day.  This is a link to the sample website that I created: https://sites.google.com/site/mswardskindergartenclassroom/.

By having a website, a teacher is designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments.  If the teacher has older age group, he or she could use their website as an example.  The teacher could have the student create their own website, an "all about me" website.  I think this would be a fun way to incorporate the web design while giving the students the opportunity to learn a little about each student.  Also, the teacher providing a website models the digital-age work and learning.  It is a tool that allows the teacher to communicate with both the students and their parents.