Assignment #5

here is the link to my class web page:
Go to http://www.scholastic.com/classhomepage
Class User Name: missfclass
Class Password: washington

For my final project I chose to do a class webpage. I have heard that every teacher should have a class webpage, and thought it would be a good idea to get a start on it now. I looked a long time for the perfect spot to make my page and finally settled on scholastic. Scholastic looked like it had a lot of fun resources for kids and it looked like it had the most and best options for a classroom. Some of the features it includes are:

Class Announcements- for parents and students
News Announcements- from around the world
Input your own Google Calendar
Links to kid websites
Teacher Book list
Class photo album
Online activities

It was a little bit hard making a website for my class because I do not have my own class yet. I had to input fake scenarios and I considered making a fake class photo album, but eventually decided against it. The web page its self was a little more confusing that I was expecting too. I would press save, but when I would go back to my site it wouldn't there. Also it was a little slow in loading, and it didn't offer quite as many things as I had hoped. After creating the site, I now feel comfortable with using it, and I think it is a good way for a teacher to have a web page because it has all the basics, and it was set up just for teachers. Scholastic does have a lot of resources you can add to your page too. My favorite part of the web page is the online activities section. You can include games and learning tools that scholastic has on their web page. For example they have something called global trek and the kids can click on it and choose whatever country they want to go to, and learn a lot of great information about it. They also get to meet other kids from that country. I believe that once you get the hang of this page it is a good way for a teacher to make a web page esp.if they do not know a lot about how to make a web page from scratch or do not want to take the time to do that.

The second part of my project was the Google Calendar. I had not used one of these before, but thought it would be easy enough to figure out. I was right, it was very simple to use and another good resource for teachers, either just to use for themselves, or to use for the classroom. I liked how the web site integrated the Google calendar into it. Allowing you to give more detail to the events on your calendar down below.