Google Sites!
What is it about a site that makes it scream 'LOOK AT ME'?
Colour, photos, links, videos
I think I look at the learning sites as being a functional place, not a place to show what we are doing. I think I need to move away from focusing on the functional side and include more of what the students are actually doing, examples of their work
Inspiration! I loved the organisation and visual appeal of this site!
Tautoro Year 7 & 8 site - Super functional and loved seeing the learning timetable published on the site. Incentive based learning by using a points system, I think this is a really cool way of motivating students to challenge themselves. I like that the students will be moving towards being self-monitoring and self-regulating. I think when we give the students all of the tools to have a go, we are in a way taking away restriction and letting them experience learning on their own terms. I understand that sometimes there will be hiccups and they may not be successful in terms of the specific task, but they will be successful in attempting a new task and taking responsibility for their own learning. I think sometimes our students want to get in and have a go, not wait for someone to do it with them. I like to think we are helping our students to become responsible people who see value in the learning and as a result are keen to engage in the learning tasks. As I have senior students who are undertaking extra curricular activities and are often not in the classroom, I try to ensure my site has lots of resources to support their learning when away from the class. I try and keep it relevant and updated - which can be a somewhat major undertaking when you are still learning how to use a computer competently. I think one of the biggest challenges I face as a Teacher is being time poor.
Looking forward to the future I plan on setting up my site in the holidays to ensure all of the resources, activities etc are on there. I can organise it by date and title so it is in chronological order and the students can see a clear pathway of learning leading up to any assessment activities.
What have I been learning?
Adding images and creating a carousel
Organizing my page so that the sub pages are in logical order.
Adding student work - making the site a shared site, not just my space.
I need to be publishing the classes work on the site, I think this make the page feel more like their space and less impersonal. I was thinking about this as I was thinking about my classes and found a word map that we created last term in my photo gallery. I think it would be cool to tell the students at the time and get them to take and choose the photo to use on the site. This activity was informative, fun and gave the students a chance to share ideas in a visual way.
The above image shows the links the students made between the key idea in the text and the factors that they believed were influencing the actions of the characters.
