September 2001 — Features
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Classroom Web Sites and Student Success
As a tool, there is a plethora of resources on the Web for teachers and students. One can casually browse and find information on nearly any topic they choose. Educational support, supply companies and textbook publishers have resource sites to aid teachers in lesson planning and product support. Some high schools and universities offer distance learning where students can enroll and earn credit for courses taken entirely online.
Many of these developments are in response to a push to get more qualified workers into the market. Computers have transformed industries and society. One simply has to look at the growth of computers in American homes to see how important we view this technology. Since 1984, the percentage of American homes that have a computer rose from 8.2 percent to 51 percent in 2000. Even more dramatic is that Internet access has gone from 18.6 percent in 1998 to 41.5 percent in 2000.
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Because the Internet is a powerful communication tool for teachers, students, parents and the community, it makes sense to develop a Web site that provides information about what is going on in school. The greatest concern for educators is time. A classroom Web site is a great idea as long as it is manageable. I decided to build a classroom Web site for myself, my students, their parents and the community, so that everyone is well-informed of what I am doing in class.
HTML is the language of the Internet. I am familiar with computer programming and what it takes to learn a high-level computer programming language. While studying for my undergraduate degree at Hamline University, I took courses in Basic, Pascal and Assembly languages. I was not prepared for, nor did I have the desire to learn another computer language. I decided that HTML was definitely not for me. To place information on the Web, I choseMicrosoft's FrontPage 2000 to generate my Web pages, and Blackboard.com, a free Web site service designed to get teachers online, to post all of the school-related information. FrontPage 2000 is very nice for generating pages, working as a synthesis of several of the Microsoft Office products, including Word and PowerPoint. I found that it is easier to drag-and-drop than use Front Page to learn HTML.
Deciding what to in-clude on the Web site was an important step. My first concern was to identify my audience. My primary focus was on my students and their successes, so I considered their needs when setting up the site. I surveyed the students to see what they would find most useful. What I found was that they wanted the class schedule, assignments and due dates, study guides, a discussion board, handouts and grades posted on the site. So far, I have all but the grades posted. I am currently developing a way to post grades and missing assignments while maintaining student confidentiality.
The problem I faced using FrontPage was that I could only update the site from home, which is why I chose Blackboard.com for my school-related items. The site is easy to set up and seems to be secure, but the best part is its power. You can do almost anything on Blackboard.com, including posting assignment due dates, conducting online research, attaching printable handouts and viewing discussion boards. Students can even hand in homework electronically on the site.
