3. Many teachers have a classroom website with varying levels of success. How have you made your classroom website more useful to students, families, and other educators? What gaps still remain?
I currently have a Early childhood Center website that I maintain for the whole center. We just started using the website this past school year. I would say that at the current level, we have had beginning success with the website. We have current news for parents to see at any time. This is good in case parent have forgotten important dates or information that they need to know.
Another factor that is huge for parents and families is the weekly newsletter. I upload the current newsletter every Friday for the following week. This has been very helpful for families who are split or parents who are divorced. Sometimes it is hard to get school information to those family members who do not transport to school or even live out of town. This has been something very huge for us. In the past, we have had to mail school information to parents and now we can just direct them to our website.
The website is still not being used by students. But there are links for parents to get on for students to practice skills.
I would like there to be more communication between parents and families between each other. I have currently downloaded a chat piece to the website for that reason. I just did that this summer so hopefully I will see some growth with that this next school year.
What kinds of things do you use your website for in an Early childhood center?
Tiger Cubs Early Childhood Center website
I really like the chat session you have on there now? Will you have someone monitoring it frequently to know when someone has sent you a message? How do you know when someone has sent you a chat? Does it just pop up or does it send you an email? On my website, I just have a Contact Me page where they can send me an email. I have had parents/students use that a few times. I think a chat session would be more helpful, but I'm not on my page enough. I would just have to train myself to do that.
ReplyDeleteUploading your newsletter to your site is a good idea. I like your point about separated families. I have many students in this type of situation. I may be in constant contact with one parent while the other parent has no clue what is happening in the classroom. Canvas has helped a little with this, but it's really a matter of making sure all parties are educated about where to go for the information.
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