After reading the resources provided to us, in particular the article "Why in the World Wide Web" by Jamie McKenzie, I decided to evaluate my own district website (Newark Public Schools), as I am currently a first year teacher at Arts High School. After reading the article and spending some time exploring the website, I was quite impressed with the wealth of information available at the click of a mouse, including full textbooks, novels, search engines and data bases, and even a way for parents and teachers to log in to the digital grade book to view grades and assignments for students. The website is user friendly, all of the links I clicked on worked quickly and properly, and the site was easy to navigate.
Although I regularly frequent the district's website, I was amazed to see how much information and resources were available via the site as well as to think about the time and care that was put in to designing such a website. I was able to locate my schools web page, as well as email addresses and contact information for all teachers in the school, including myself! Despite the fact that I mainly frequent the website for pragmatic purposes, including checking my district email and logging in to my grade book from home, if I was a parent, I would find the site quite useful. From the site, one can navigate to specific teacher's e Boards where assignments, syllabus, calendars, etc. can be posted and modified continuously. These e Boards allow parents a way to access and monitor their students assignments, grades, upcoming events, etc. from where ever they are, even if they are away on business, live far from their children, etc. My one issue comes with the fact that Newark is an urban district where many families still do not have access to computers, therefore are unable to take advantage of this well designed, practical website. This issue one of my fundamental qualms with technology. It is, in fact, not democratic in that certain individuals, depending on their socioeconomic status and class, do not have the same access as others. (Curious about this topic? check out this article on the digital divide in America.) Nonetheless, the fact that this information is available 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world makes the website extremely valuable.
The district site also showcases different schools achievements, awards, and student work. It also is visually pleasing and includes images of students. For parents, the site provides digital copies of important documents, links to parent groups, advisory boards, etc. The amount of information and resources available for parents, students, and teachers alike is quite remarkable. I believe that this exploration of my own school districts website was fruitful in that it opened my eyes to ways in which a website can be extremely useful in organizing information and making it available to all those who are requesting information, including teachers, students, and parents/guardians.
2 comments:
I was not able to find teacher websites at your high school. I understand that the parent portal allows access for parents to view grades, etc. However, as Dr. McKenzie points out - websites should allow for more interaction through connecting with students through content. I do hope this course provides you with some resources you can use in your class.
Interestingly enough, the website for Arts High I believe was updated and modified as I came into school today to a very different website! The website does allow students to get to specific teachers eBoards, although it took me a minute to locate the eBoards with the new site, and perhaps they are a bit hidden (a criticism of the website). If you click on the TAB "For Teachers" and go to eBoards, and then click on Student eBoards. The next page breaks the school up into departments. Once you click on "Science" a new page listing the faculty in the department comes up. From this page, across the top you can select the "Assignments" tab which brings you to each teacher's individual eBoard. If you visit my eBoard, "Ms. E. Mooney" you can access my course syllabus, access the Anatomy text online, and also obtain missing assignments, PowerPoints, etc. Although this technically is a way for students to connect via content, it is not very user friendly, many teachers in my school do not utlize and/or update their boards, and on this new website it was difficult to locate the boards.
I plan on using this course to help make a class website that contains all course work, a calendar, photos, etc that will serve as a pragmatic tool for myself and my students.
Would you prefer that I visit another district's webpage that has teacher websites different from the eBoards I have discussed?
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