Google Sites and Research

What?

What am I learning? This week was a little bit crazy because we didn't have class last Monday so we had to squish two class periods worth of information into one. It was a great class though. We are learning to make a Google Site for our class. There is a lot that goes into it but once it's done it's pretty awesome. We also did research on a topic from the Utah State Curriculum so that we can begin putting information together to make our digital stories.

So What?

So what does this mean to me as a teacher, student and colleague today? It means that I have learned how to make a class website for my students and their parents to find out what our class is studying and what homework there is. As a teacher, this is a great thing to have for the class because it shows the parents that I am organized as a teacher and I have made an extra effort to put a site together just for the students. There will be no excuse for homework not being done or for students to forget what the homework is. It is accessible to them anytime. As a student, it is helping me to become more organized and to find new resources to help the students (the resources page was difficult and took a long time to do but is well worth it for all of the information and resourceful links that I was able to find. As a colleague, it means that I can be prepared ahead of time and don't have to feel like I'm running one hundred miles a minute. I can help them to create their own classroom sites if they don't have one yet. I will have time to help my team do well and work well together because I won't have procrastinated.

Now What?

I have already discussed in the above paragraph what this means for my future students but I want to reiterate that having the classroom site is only going to enhance the way my classroom is run and the organization that I will have. This new information changes my current schema because I now know that I have a place where parents can go to make sure that their child is getting the homework done that is assigned. I really love that the students can access great resources directly from my classroom site. They can play games and learn new things which makes me really happy! This will help me to become a better teacher in the future because I will always be organized with the homework because the students will just have to get onto the internet to get their assignments and I can print out the homework page from the site for the students. As a team, we can make sure that we are on track with our teaching and homework by using the calendar that is public for all to see.

This assignment took me a long time but I am very happy with the end product. I feel that the site is such a great resource for the parents, students and teachers. I enjoyed finding resources and playing around with them to see if they were age appropriate and testing to see that the students would enjoy them. I showed my children the site and they loved it. They wanted to get right onto the resources page and play the games and do the activities. I think that's a pretty good indicator that the students will like the site since my children are around the same ages as my target grade. I had lots of fun with this assignment!