Week 1

This week I visited numerous science teacher websites to start getting ideas for my future website.  My district unfortunately promotes the use of a tool called ischool for their teacher websites.  This platform does not allow teachers to add creativity to their web page by adding color, background, or graphics.  This platform also does not have a calendar feature that is easily readable for students to see assignments and due dates.  This platform simply allows teachers to organize documents used in their classroom into unit folders.  Kind of boring in my opinion.

I visited the websites of some teachers that I work with that do not use ischool but have found other platforms for their websites.  I can't say that I was overly impressed with any of these teacher's web pages.  Most of them simply used calendar features to let students know about assignments, due dates, and possibly had hyperlinks to documents or power points.  There were a few sites that did have good external links to resource sites that would be beneficial to students who struggle with concepts.  Something that I need to remember to put on my site would be good links

The best websites I visited would be Messer's Science Class and Mrs. Mac's Classes .  Both teachers used weebly as their platform for their website which allowed them to change the background, have tabs, and include clip art.  Both websites caught my eye and more importantly were mostly up to date and easy to navigate.  These websites will be ones that I will reference again in the future as I begin to create my own website. I think weebly would be a viable option for a platform for my site.

After looking at all these websites I can easily seem some pitfalls that I need to avoid as I create my own site.  Looking at the article 10 Tips for an A+ Classroom Website, I think it is extremely important to review those tips as I create my site and make it user friendly. Looking at the list, those were all things that I was looking at when I was evaluating other teacher web pages.  Also I looked at the website World's Worst Website and found all the things to not include in my future website.  That page is a hilarious combination of everything you would never want your website to look like.