Wednesday, April 27, I "launched" my parent website, entitled CCCA Kindergarten Kids!! on Weebly. It was definitely a learning experience to build and design my first website! After getting accustomed to the mechanics of Weebly, I found that it was very user-friendly, in that I could manipulate the 'Elements' components to customize the pages to my needs. I really enjoyed being able to create a "place" where the parents of my students could better see and understand what special activities and events their children enjoy and learn about. Having the opportunity to combine text, pictures, video and links to educational websites makes it much more personal than simply communicating using a weekly newsletter. Our class is blessed to have a number of engaging, unique learning experiences to introduce content and review and reinforce it in memorable ways. I was pleased with the way that the site personalizes kindergarten for the families. I learned a few important basics about photography and filming, and to try to include each child somewhere in the website, whether in still pictures or video format. I have learned to use a few technology tools to create the site, such as Voki, Wordle, Windows Movie Maker, and several educational sites for younger students. I hope that the site will make a stronger and more effective home to school connection, and that families will feel more a part of their children's school day.
I did receive a few comments about the site:
- Awesome!!!!!! (from my teaching partner :))
- thank you.... this web site is fantastic!!!
- Thank you Mrs. Johnson! That was absolutely WONDERFUL! I enjoyed cruising around and looking at the different things. Thank you again for all that you do!!!
- WOW - what an awesome website!! It was so great to see all the pictures and videos - we hear about a lot of what happens at school but it is great to actually see what we are being told to help put it all together!
- This is very nice. Thank you for sharing. Is it a public site? If so, I would request that names are not used and events are not listed until after they have occured. (I responded to this parent that no names would be used and I would intentionally be aware of privacy and security issues).
I have begun to plan more web pages for special activities and events, to post on the site shortly. Doing this project made me much more aware and appreciative of what the creators of websites, videos, newspapers, etc. go through to create a final product to communicate to an audience. But the end result has been rewarding!
So glad to hear the responses to your website. As one of you parents said they hear a lot about what happens at school but it's so much better to see and experience it via video and photos. You've done an amazing job making an actual working classroom site.
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