Classroom Website

Throughout the TPTE 486 course this semester, we have been creating a classroom website. My website includes a welcome page, an about me section, classroom rules, suggested educational websites to visit, examples of technology projects I have completed throughout the course, links to web 2.0 tools, and a link to my classroom blog.

What went well:
I thoroughly enjoyed creating this class website using Google Sites. It allowed me to show my creativity and passion and excitement for becoming a teacher. Google Sites is very easy to use and allows you the ability to design your web page the way you want. The site was very easy to navigate and the project as a whole was very well thought out and leaves us with an excellent artifact to carry on throughout our educational careers. I found editing my website and customizing it to my own desires extremely easy and recommend the use of Google Sites to create websites to anyone.

What did not go well: 
The only problem I ran into with Google Sites and creating my class website was not being able to adjust the size of the font on the sidebar. This caused me to have to pick out a different font to ensure that the viewers of my website can clearly read the different links located on the side bar. It was just confusing to me that Google Sites allows you to customize pretty much every other element of your website other than the sidebar font. However, this problem was easily fixed through finding a different font.

What I would change:
I would not change a lot about this project or Google Sites as a whole. The only thing I would change is being able to adjust the font size of the links on the sidebar. This way, you can use whatever font you would like due to the fact that you can adjust the size so that the links are clearly legible to your viewers. Other than this simple adjustment, I don't think anything needs to be changed about the site.

How I plan to use this in my classroom:
I definitely plan to use the website I have created as my class website when I become a teacher. If Google Sites cannot be used in whichever school I end up teaching at, I plan to use this website as a template for creating another class website. I am so excited to use this in the upcoming future and know that it will provide my students and their parents an abundance of information and resources. In addition, I plan to incorporate Google Sites into possible group projects for my students since the site is very user friendly and easy to navigate.

Below is a screen shot of my classroom homepage and a link to the actual class site.
Click here to visit my class site.