Teacher-Websites for Every Teacher=
?
Abstract
Even though there is an abundance of research literature examining the impact of technology on learning in the school there is very little literat= ure examining the use of teacher-websites in facilitating learning. This paper begins by making three explicit assumptions related to the content and desi= gn of teacher-websites. Teachers= are encouraged to plan their websites around curricular goals and to take advan= tage of new software that greatly simplifies the production of websites. Not all teachers may find the same= value in teacher-websites. However = the barriers to making and using websites have been removed or greatly reduced making it so that every teacher that wants a website can make one—eas= ily. New educational research is needed to define the unique and facilitating characteristics of the teacher-website as a communication and learning instrument and to determine its impact on students, parents and other stakeholders in the educative process of the school.
Introduction
Are you a teacher? Do you have your own school-related website? Have = you ever wondered how many teachers in the population of teachers have their own website? A teacher-website is somewhat different from a school website. Of course these two can and probab= ly should be linked together but a teacher-website is primarily a communication vehicle between your classroom and the outside world. Its main content is the people and= the events that transpire in your room. Its purpose is to foster and improve communication with your childre= n, their parents and others who have an interest in the educational welfare of your class. So, do you have a= teacher-website? Do you want one?
The feas= ibility of teacher-websites is greatly enhanced by improvements in technology. Since Tim Berners-Lee introduced t= he concept of hypertext in 1993 the growth of the Internet and its family of websites has been explosive. = So a decade has passed and the majority of teachers do not yet have their own website. The question that ar= ises from this is what proportion of the teaching population can lay claim to ha= ving a professional website? By as= king the question you uncover an area of Information Communications Technology (= ICT) which is ripe for new research—an observation confirmed by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency [Becta] who report a “paucity of specific research in this area” (Becta, 2002a, p3).=
Specific
research on the impact of technology on the schools is abundant. Of course the impact of technology=
in
schools spans a thirty-year timeframe whereas the effects of the Internet o=
nly cover
a single decade. Technology
research concentrates on the effects of technology on learning and
attitude. Overall, the results
indicate that technology has positive influences on learning, attitude, and
even influences aspects of character such as responsibility and
self-concept. However, these
positive results are dependent upon how the teacher uses the technology.
Dr. Kyle=
Peck of
The resu=
lts
reported by Peck parallel the findings reported in Newhouse’s literat=
ure
review written for the Western Australian Department of Education and also =
the
findings reported by the ICT communication agency for the
This lit= erature supports what we already knew that the teacher is the critical agent in promoting successful learning at school.&n= bsp;
The teacher’s prime role is as a communicator. It should not be surprising that e= arly research on the impact of ICT emphasized the direct communication involved between teacher and learners in the classroom. However, it is a natural extension= to examine communication at a secondary level such as that involved on a teach= er-website. In so far as a website can be used= to improve the quality of communication between teacher and student or between teacher and parent [assuming the role of teacher outside school hours] that website is likely to be viable, justifiable, and commendable. However, the research literature d= oes not yet provide support for this assertion. Neither does it tell us about the = level of penetration of teacher-websites into the teaching-learning methodology of classroom teachers. The absence of findings presents a challenge to educato= rs to investigate the characteristics and contribution of website communicatio= n to learning outcomes.
Even tho= ugh the literature provides little direct evidence on the impact of teacher-website= s on positive curricular outcomes there are some findings that indirectly support teacher efforts in this capacity. Some of these supporting tenets include the following.
From this picture it would probably be fair to say that the use of teacher-websites i= s a relatively untapped resource to expand the influence of the teacher, classr= oom, and the school. Even where te= achers have constructed their own websites they are still at a relatively early st= age of development and much of the potential remains untapped and certainly undocumented. Also many teach= ers have not yet taken the step of preparing their own personalized website to communicate their individual style and imprint on the teaching-learning process. However, even though teachers are incredibly busy people and greater responsibilities are placed= on their role with each passing year, there appears to be adequate justificati= on for this additional responsibility of web page communicator to further enha= nce the learning environment initiated by the teacher at school.
Planning
Your Website
Even tho= ugh not very much is scientifically known about the contribution and impact of teac= her-websites to learning there is no shortage of information about how to design a good website. There are two aspect= s involved in planning your website. The= first pertains to its content or what you should put on it. The second relates to the organiza= tion and structure of the site—its design. Before we look at these two topics= we need to define some of the assumptions that will guide the remainder of this discussion.
Time and Difficulty Issues
The following comments from a teacher on a page of her website entitl= ed Teacher Building Websites probably typify the teacher who is constructing a first website.
I can’t count how many hundre= ds of hours that I have spent working on my website since July 31, 2000. One day I was logged on and read on AOL@School about building your own website. I thought that would be an excelle= nt way to keep in touch with many of my families.= At least the e-mail. I= never dreamed that my site would become all that it has. I’m constantly looking for n= ew ideas to incorporate into my site. (Stahlheber, 2000)
Mrs. Stahlheber goes on to describe her early experiences with website construction to be frustrating but ultimately worth the effort. She started her site by learning H= TML [hypertext mark-up language]—the language of the Internet. Since that time many web editors h= ave been introduced which purport to simplify the development process. This lea= ds to our first assumption.
Teachers are busy people. They have always been busy people even before they took on all the a= dded roles of surrogate parent, nurse, custodian, security officer, lunch-money collector, action researcher, curriculum developer, and the other numerous unnamed responsibilities that have crept in to their assignment. Of course,= the amount of time that each teacher is willing and able to devote to creating a personal website is a highly individual consideration. However, any way to reduce the frustration in bringing the site to life and reducing the extent of product= ion time would seem to be welcome. A website after all is an enhancement to communication not a necessary condit= ion for it. So, our first assumption is …
Assumption 1: For the development of =
your
first site, choose the simplest web editor available. The rationale for thi=
s is
to reduce the investment of time in learning how to do things on the web so
that time can be spent in saying what you want to say to your children at h=
ome
and their parents.
Personal Expenditure Issues
Following a similar line of thought teachers are spending more of the= ir own personal money to keep classrooms in the things that they believe will provide incentive and functionally assist learning. The expenses include tokens, prize= s, display visuals, bulletin board borders, letters, lettering tools, special papers, fasteners and so on. This doe= s not include compassionate expenses that come up, staffroom treat rotation duty, donations, and many other relatively unplanned impromptu expenses. Websites too involve costs. There is the cost of server space, software, and sometimes even costs associated with graphics or sounds.
One of the practices supported by the educational research related to= the impact of technology is the importance of having the support of the school leaders in adopting and using the technology (Becta, 2002b). Therefore, get= ting the school administration behind your efforts at developing your website is important. Any expenses beyon= d your investment in time may be taken care of if administrative support is forthcoming. However, there w= ill still be many instances where budget is unavailable for the creation of tea= cher-websites.
This leads to a second assumption.
Assumption 2: In order to keep costs =
low we
should consider alternatives which are free or near free. This includes the use of server-sp=
ace,
the use of software, graphics, sounds, special effects and so on.
‘Bells and Whistles’ Issu=
es
With early PowerPoint presentations teachers became enchanted with all the bells and whistles available in the animations and transitions. Research in this area= has shown these embellishments to be inhibitors to learning rather than enhancements of it (Crispen, nd). Essentially, research findings suggest that the less noticeable the transitions and animations the better the PowerPoint presentation as a lear= ning tool. Also, the use of both i= mages and sounds should be considered carefully.= Sounds as well as images which are incorporated into a PowerPoint program should either add to the content or directly illustrate it or else = they should not be used at all. Th= ese early findings are a contradiction to the expectations of many presentation makers. This leads to the third and final assumption.
Assumption 3: Simpler is better from =
the
standpoint of clear meaningful communication. Backgrounds should be clean and fr=
ee of
noise. Structure and order sh=
ould
help simplify and make the purpose of each page and each link relatively
straightforward. All links an=
d all
pages should relate to the overall purpose of providing useful information =
to
parents and children who are the main audiences for the site.
We have all visited sites in whi= ch there was so much going on that our first impression was one of confusion.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Sometimes the site was so “busy” that we lost patience and left. Our third assumption which stresses simplicity is consistent with commonly accepted design principles. There is still a notion that the fancier the website is the better it is. By explicitly stating Assumption 3= we are saying something more akin to the opposite. The simpler and cleaner the site t= he more useful it is likely to be in providing the information that parents and children need to supplement what is happening in the classroom environment.=
Content of=
Teacher-websites
We have already established that= the two primary audiences for teacher-websites are the students themselves and their parents. The main use f= or first-cut websites will be to provide information related to the learning environment prepared by the teacher to promote learning of the curriculum.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> That, after all, is the explicit p= urpose of the teaching-learning enterprise of the school.
Of course there are other purpos= es that teachers might decide are viable for a website such as instructional s= ites on an area of expertise, or as resource collectors for the improvement of teaching but these purposes would rank lower in priority particularly for a first website. Therefore, our description will be limited to the kind of website intended to open up and improve communication between the teacher’s classroom and the home as described earlier.
There are some basic stages through which teacher-websites evolve.
Teacher-websites progress [roughly] through the following stages (Dir= ks, 2003). Of course they may not follow exactly the same sequence as described below but Dirks’ analys= is illustrates the nature of the evolutionary process in teacher or classroom websites. The main difference= as you move from level to level is in the amount of maintenance and updating required by each successive level.
1st Basic We=
bsite
· Teacher picture and background
· E-mail link
· Office hours
· Welcome [e.g., letter of introduction]
2nd Basic Plus
Website
· Permission slips
· Request for volunteers
· Reminder and late-slips
3rd Basic Plus L=
inks
Website
· Help with ongoing classroom activity
· General information about classroom curricul= um
· Teacher-interest links [online stories, educational resources]
· Fun links [kids’ games, high-interest topics, jokes]
· School
·
· Ministry
· Content-standards
· Kids’ search engines
· Lesson plan sites
· Downloadable worksheets, puzzles, tests
· Study skills information
4th Basic Plus
Homework Website
· Class notes
· Parent information
· Monthly newsletter
5th Basic Plus S=
tudent
Showcase Website
· Portfolios
· Individual projects
· Collaborative projects
It
is a good idea to examine other teacher-websites to find out how other peop=
le
with similar needs have addressed the challenge of communicating on the
Internet. That way you can reinforce your own preferences and establish some
personal rules about what you want to include as well as what you do not wa=
nt
to do. The simple dictum is t=
hat if
most people include a topic then you should seriously consider including it=
as
well. This guideline and seve=
ral
others are included in Jakob Nielsen’s (2002) Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability. Many other similar r=
esources
can be located on the web for guidance on this topic, for example, Classroom Webpage Guidelines poste=
d by
Getting Started
To get started with your first site six-pages of coverage is suggested. These = six pages cover many of the essential components included in the teacher-website evolutionary pattern outlined above. These pages also correspond to those used by commercial providers who offer to assist teachers in the production of a functional website such as = Online Solutions for Educators (On= line Solutions for Educators, 2004).
= 1.&n= bsp; Home pa= ge to introduce the teacher and the classroom
= 2.&n= bsp; A What̵= 7;s New page to highlight special things happening right now in your classr= oom
= 3.&n= bsp; A Calendar<= /i> page to outline classroom highlights for the current month
= 4.&n= bsp; An Assignme= nts page to explain important homework
= 5.&n= bsp; A Reference= page of links to useful Internet sites
= 6.&n= bsp; A Contact page to provide teacher and school contact information
Your first site will not likely = be very interactive. It may prov= ide permission slips that can be printed but primarily it provides timely information to the parents and community about what is happening in your cl= ass. It also makes your school e-mail address conveniently available.
Design Principles: Simplicity is Impe=
rative
One of your primary concerns will be to have your website look
professional. What has been learned from PowerPoint presentations is probab=
ly applicable
to websites. Dr. Susan Lang of
Southern Illinois University offers one succinct statement that applies bot=
h to
PowerPoint presentations and to teacher-websites: “Be brief, be brigh=
t,
OR be gone.” (Lang, nd, p. 1)
Similarly, Judy Williamson of
On the matter of design you can be as meticulous or as casual as you =
feel
the need. However, one aspect=
of it
that you should not ignore as we said earlier is looking at other teacher-w=
ebsites. The overall standard for what make=
s a
good website [as well as a poor one] is established from existing sites.
Production Principles: Quick-and-Easy
Websites
Web editors are software programs especially designed to translate wo= rds and pictures into HTML—the language of the Internet. The two most well-known editors ar= e Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. There are = many other web editors besides these two but almost without exception the web editors available up to now have required a significant investment in learn= ing time before you would be able to use them to create your own web pages. Furthermore, for the novitiate, the learning curve on these editors tends to be steep, i.e., they are quite difficult to learn well enough to apply in a practical way.
Over the last year or so a second-generation webpage editor has been introduced which greatly simplifies the learning process. The controls are more intuitive th= an they are on the larger editors while at the same time the capabilities are quite extensive. Some of these second-generation editors use templates where the user puts in new content = to replace placeholders; and others leave the design of the page up to the user. They, however, all atte= mpt to drastically reduce the amount of learning time required to create your own website. An examination of a few of these should illustrate the potential of these new editors.
Web Page Maker v1.5 (Web Page Mak=
er,
2004)
Power Website Builder v1.5.0 (Pow=
er
Website Builder, 2004)
Easy Web Editor v3.9.7.7 (Easy Web
Editor, 2004)
Effective Site Studio (2004) (Eff=
ective
Site Studio, 2004)
SiteCraft v1.5 (SiteCraft, 2004)
You in Web Ready-Site Pro v1.0 (Y=
ou in
Web Ready-Site Pro, 2004)
Desktop Flash Site Builder v1.0 (=
Trendy
Flash, 2004)
If you look up the descriptions of these programs you will be able to= see that the intention of this new line of editors is to steer the user away fr= om learning HTML or other software and to concentrate on the design and the content of the website. This philosophy is quite consistent with our first assumption to let the computer deal with the mechanics of the problem while you supply the ideas to displa= y.
Personal Investment Principles: Effic=
iency
and Economic Strategies
For purposes here we will assume that you are only willing to contribute your time to the development of a website. Therefore we need to find Internet providers that provide free hosting. There are many providers who offer free space. For example geocities.com offers 15 megabytes of space in return for allowi= ng free advertising and some pop-ups on the page. Fifteen megabytes is a generous am= ount for a first site. Besides, if= 15 megs is too limiting you are able to open other accounts each affording an additional 15 megs.
As indicated earlier the greatest commitment in time= is in planning your website. A storyboard form would be useful because it would organize the page into a g= raph paper section to draw the output shown on the screen and provide space alon= g the side to add notes pertaining to the page.&= nbsp; However a blank sheet of paper will do if a storyboard form is not a= vailable. You should make a sketch on paper for each of the six pages comprising your site. The main section of the= page should show a sketch of a scaled-version of a 600 by 800 pixel screen area which is a common size used to display Internet pages. Along the side of the sketched pag= e you should make special notes with respect to the page content such as finding a new image or creating a new page intended for printing that will link off t= he main page. The notes are for = those special ideas that emerge during planning that you hadn’t thought of earlier—essentially they are refinements in planning that happen as y= ou progress. These planning shee= ts when completed will provide written documentation which will be very helpful when you sit down to make your HTML files with your web editor.
Another time consideration comes from keeping your information up-to-date. Since= time is already such a precious commodity for teachers you need to be careful ab= out how much extra time will be needed to maintain and update a website. For your first website, therefore,= you should plan so that updates can be minimal. Of course, the inclusion of the mo= nthly calendar means that you will need to make changes at least once a month but= it is advisable that you seek to do your updating no more frequently than once= a week. That way you can establ= ish a routine which will help to lighten the extra work, psychologically at least= .
Following
Through With Your Plans
So by this time you know what information your web pages will carry, you have a clear idea of how your pa= ges will look on a monitor, you have an easy-to-use web editor, so you should be ready to start. Actually ther= e are a myriad of little things beyond these main decisions that need to be atten= ded to. They are all little thing= s but when you are first starting these little things can be extremely frustrating. That’s why= we should look at a few safeguards to make the whole process as non-wasteful of your time as it can possibly be.
Besides preparing the pages you = need to set up an Internet account with your internet service provider (ISP) and= you need to upload your pages onto the server maintained by the ISP. Additional= ly, you might want to look at software especially designed to do various parts = of the job of creating your website such as making buttons and navigation bars, making calendars for the web, and uploading prepared pages. Generally, a piece of software pre= pared for a specific job does that job more efficiently and with greater flexibil= ity than software that purports to do everything.
Ideally, it would also be desira= ble to have a support-group. Anot= her person or group of people who share the journey with you can provide someon= e to talk through problems and to share experiences. Even if your work is problem-free = it is still advantageous to talk to a partner about how it is going. For all the above reasons it might= be a good idea for a school or a group of teachers to schedule a workshop from y= our University. The web page maki= ng process can be introduced at the first session.&nb= sp; Fine points can be discussed. Support-groups can be assigned. Even independent guidance tutorials = can be provided on CD or some other portable format. Finally, some sort of time= line can be established. At a seco= nd meeting plans can be discussed and shared just prior to producing the pages. At a third and final m= eeting the completed sites can be shown off to people who have shared in the entire process. The work somehow seems lighter when it is shared and the whole experience is more appreciated than the lone effort of producing your first site.
Conclusion=
Even though the research literat= ure is not yet written which extols the advantages and facilitating characteris= tics of websites to teaching and learning there is enough evidence to make the effort worth a try. The news about websites is not always good news, howeve= r. A private school (middle school le= vel) in Brunei Darussalam embarked on a campaign in 2001 to have every teacher crea= te his or her own site. This app= roach was top-down. The administrat= ion required the site as part of the responsibilities of teaching at the school. Not all teachers saw the real need for a website. Many felt that their time might be better invested in other learning-enhancement activities. After three years an informal surv= ey revealed that about 10% of the teachers were actively incorporating the site into their day-to-day routine. Another 10% were decidedly-negative about the use of teacher-website= s in their circumstances and the remaining 80% were neutral in their view of websites as extending the capabilities of the classroom teacher. The level of impact of this innova= tion was disappointing. Websites are probably not for everyone. And top-down leadership is probably not the best approach when it comes to diffusion particularly when you consider the priority of the role of websit= es in the overall responsibility of a classroom teacher.
A teacher-website is a good thing. It can help make a good teacher a = better teacher and that’s why you are interested in creating a website in the first place. The time is right to create your own teacher-website because t= he software has greatly simplified the process yet retained flexibility to all= ow you to get the look you desire. However, your desire for a site must stem f= rom your own expectations that it can help your children and their parents get = the most from the educational process carried on by the school. Websites may no= t be appropriate for every teacher at this time. After all, you do not need to have= a website to make use of e-mail. For th= ose teachers, however, that would like to explore the potential in the teacher-website to communicate and express themselves on the Internet the conditions are much improved over what they were a year ago. New research is needed to explore and document the use and impact of teacher-websites on the enterprise of the school. Your teacher-website provides yet another opportu= nity to clarify your goals, assignments, and perceptions of the special learning environment called your classroom—with a greatly expanded meaning of classroom—and it could contribute to the much needed research in the area.
References
Becta (2002a). Becta ICT Rese= arch: What the research says about ICT and home-school links. Retrieved Octob= er 13, 2004 from h= ttp://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/wtrs_icthome.pdf
Becta (2002b). Becta report: Primary schools – ict and standards. Retrieved October 18, 2004 f= rom http://www.becta.org.uk/research/research.cfm?section=3D1&id=3D230=
Blanchard, J. (1998). “The family-school connection and technol= ogy”. In proceedings of the families, technology and education conference. Retrieved October 18 from http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/eecearchive/books/fte/links/blanchard.html
Chanboudy, R., & Jameson, P. (2001). “Connecting families a= nd schools through technology”. = Book Report, 20(2), pp. 52-57.
Crispen, P. (nd) Now that I k= now powerpoint how can I use it to teach? Retrieved October 18, 2004 from http://ftc.fullerton.edu/crispen/
Dirks, T. (2003). Building and publishing a teacher-website. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.ict= .org/presentations/tdirks/cue2003.ppt
Easy Web Editor (2004). Creat= e a web site quickly, without coding! Easy web editor, the website builder mach= ine. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.easywebeditor.com/
Effective Site Studio (2004). Topshareware: Effective site studio (2004). Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.topshareware.com/Effective-Site-Studio-download-15402.htm=
Fishman, B. et al (1998). Introducing urban latino families to the internet at home: Preliminary issues and trends. Retrieved October 18, 2004 from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fishman/papers/ICLS98-NetTV.pdf
Lang, S. (nd). Design princip= les and additional resources for websites and presentations. Retrieved Octo= ber 19, 2004 from htt= p://www.siu.edu/~compcomp/technotroubleshooting/desprin.htm
McDowell, D. (nd). For the te= acher … Websites. Retrieved October 19,2004 from http://= www.grossmont.k12.ca.us/mcdowell/ccss/websites.html
Newhouse (2002). Literature r= eview: The impact of ict on teaching and learning. Retrieved October 18 from http= ://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/cmis/eval/pd/reading/reading1.htm
Nielsen, J. (2002). Ten top guidelines for homepage usability. Retrieved September 7, 2004 from= http://www.useit.com/a= lertbos/20020512.html
Online Solutions for Educators (2004). OS4E: Online solutions for educators. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.os4e.com/
Passey, D., et al. (1997). Ed= ucation departments’ superhighways initiative: Group D—Home-school link= s. Retrieved October 18, 2004 from http://edsi.ngfl.gov.uk/pdf/d= 2-1.pdf
Peck, K. (2000). Critical iss= ues for student achievement using technology. Retrieved from http://mci= u.org/~tech/PDE_web2/kyle/TLA_Action_Plan.ppt
Petruzzelli, K. (nd). Classro= om webpage guidelines. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.lo= salamitos.org/classrooms/guidelines.htm
Power Website Builder (2004). Power website builder: Build your website without html. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.powe= r-website-builder.com/
SiteCraft (2004). Sitecraft&#= 8212;constructor of simple websites. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.sitecraft.ws/
Somekh,, B. et al (2001). Usi=
ng ICT
to enhance home-school links: An evaluation of current practice in
Stahlheber, T. (2000). Teache= rs building websites. Retrieved October 18 from h= ttp://myschoolonline.com/page/0,1871,441-143616-1-47479,00.html
Trendy Flash (2004). Flash templates. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.trendyflash.com= /products.htm
Web Page Maker (2004). Web pa= ge maker: Make your own web page easy! Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://www.webpage-maker.com/
Williamson, J. (2001). IESE @= brown: Planning and designing your website. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http:= //www.brown.edu/Departments/IESE/resources/website.html
You in Web Ready-Site Pro (2004). Ready-site pro-zdnet downloads. Retrieved October 19, 2004 from http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/Ready-Site-Pro/3000-2048-10301565.html
Ganske, L. & Leong, Y= . P. (2005).
Teacher-websites for ever= y teacher?
Journal of Education, (10), 47–58. Jabatan Perkem= bangan Kurikulum, Negara Brunei Darussalam.
Auth=
or
Identification Page
Teacher-Websites for Every Teacher=
?
Dr. Ludwig Ganske & D= r. Leong Yong Pak
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah I= nstitute of Education
Universiti
Jalan Tungku Link
Gadong BE 1410
Negara