#4 Websites in the classroom. Are classroom websites an important means of communicting to parents and students? What about Google Sites?

My Response: In my experience, it is critical for teachers to maintain a classroom web site. While I am not currently teaching, I find that most teachers at the local elementary school maintain a website. My daughter's teacher is excellent and extremely organized and her website has helped tremendously with staying on top of assignments. Frequently, she comes home with questions about an assignment, e.g. its due date or content, and most often we find the answers on the website.

Clearly, in order for websites to work in classroom settings teachers will need to be comfortable with the use of technology as Karchmer (2004) points out in her article (see below). As noted, the World Wide Web contains unlimited resources for students and the use of the Internet may be the most powerful classroom tool for exposing children to the world. Currently, the use of technology is viewed as secondary to other areas of curriculum. With the push of No Child Left Behind Act, technology is viewed as supplemental rather than intrinsic to learning. Therefore, the most important place to start is with teacher preparation (Karchmer 2004,2001). I would stress that websites should not replace general communication between either teacher and student or teacher and parent but it does enhance it. Websites are a marvelous value for classrooms as I have experienced.

Karchmer, Rachel A. "Creating Connections: Using the Internet to Support Struggling Readers' Background Knowledge," in Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, Vol 20(3) Jul-Sep, 2004. Pp. 331-335.

I have not had much experience with creating my own website, although I have been the administrator who has had to oversee them. I enjoyed Google Sites very much because it was user-friendly. The idea of setting up your own website may seem scary but when the right tools are available, it is quite exciting.