Hi guys. I've been working hard on my class website for the past several days and I'd love to share my progress so far. Can't wait to hear what you guys think! Oh, and as a frame of reference, here's a pic of a page from my website last year: And on to the new... http://www.msyisclass.com
Your site is AWESOME I really liked the ABC procedures - very, very through!! I am sure your parents and students will love the site.
I love the new layout! Having the message board within the site is a great way for parent communication.
Thanks so much for your comments! I had forums last year too but they were separate and it was a struggle to get my parents to log on. I'm hoping that incorporating them into the main site will encourage them to be more active. I was aiming for something clean and easy to navigate. My old website looked way too much like the other ones currently out there. Right now I'm working on my spelling section which is turning more into an article instead of an information page. Oh well...
I like it. Easy to navigate, and I love the forum inside your website. How did you do that? Did you have to purchase that forum?
I purchased a hosting plan from fatcow and they had all these applications that I could install for free and the forums were part of it. phpbb and smf forums are usually free anyway but you have to have a server to put them on. To embed my forum into the main page, I used something called an inline frame. You can basically set any webpage into these frames. That's how I set up my classroom and curriculum sections.
Your site is beautiful. Nice, clean-looking, clear information and easy to navigate...I find the parent forums interesting...let us know how they work for you!
Wow-that is awesome! You make me want to actually purchase a hosting plan...vs the free site I have now. It looks really great! Love it!
I love your site! I just renewed my sub. to teacher web and its very limiting for creativity. I wish I had your host instead. How much does a site cost? (if you dont mind me asking)
I got an Internet special for forty some dollars. It's typically 80 a year. You'll also need some kind of website making program. I use Expression web, which is kind of pricey. They have templates if you need them but I wanted to have total control over the look and feel of the site. Thanks everyone for your kind words! I'm going to be doing another post on a particular article I just finished too =)
Thanks! I do too. Without even knowing it, I developed a ladybug/hedgehog theme for my classroom I just added a survey form to my site under the our classroom section. Here, parents can tell me about their child. I've also decided not to send out a welcome packet. Crazy, I know, but all of my info is up on my site. I will be sending home a checklist though that will guide parents to certain sections that they"ll need to review.
I LOVE your site! I have been working on setting up a site using free webs (or what used to be free webs). First attempt, so basically no experience. Yours is inspiring! I love how easy it is to navigate and how much is there. Nicely done!
Thanks so much! Trust me, this came about after a couple years of fiddling with expression web. The funny thing is, I'm so used to creating things from scratch that I have a hard time using templates =) I tried helping another teacher set up her teacherweb class page and it was the most frustrating thing ever! She had to type in her password after almost every step she took! The Internet is a great source of information. I used google a lot! My best advice would be to try and only accomplish one thing at a time with your website. Don't try to implement all sorts of gadgets and stuff right now. With my first website, I had no navigational menu on the top or on the side. All my links were at the bottom. But it served its purpose for the first couple of years.
Thanks, DHE. Okay, so I went to my fiance's parents' house last night for dinner and we checked out my website and to my surprise, and horror, it was completely off-center vertically. I think I fixed it now so if you can, please check the site in your browsers to see if the content is centered both vertically AND horizontally. Thanks =)
I looks centered and great on my computer. Our school website hosts our pages and we are required to do one this year. It is a little overwhelming. I am hoping we get some more training. We use iweb on our macs to create our pages. I appreciate the advice to keep it simple and then work on expanding in future years.
I understand your pain! I learned HTML first so using expression web and frontpage were a pain at first. No I am used to fiddling around with the coding if the page doesn't look the way I want with the template. For my site the last couple of years, I decided to use Wordpress as the main site. It is easier for me to update that way especially if I am somewhere with a computer that doesn't have an HTML editor. BTW, love the site. It amazes me how different elementary and secondary websites are!
Thanks for checking it guys. @old n new: If you want to check out other teacher websites, you can google top of the class or school days and there's a bunch listed. @senora lorenzo: I'm actually starting to mess with the coding more to get the results that I want. I'm learning as I go =)