Draft Communication & Accountability Michael Perry National Board Certified Business Teacher East Paulding High School Adjunct Business Professor, Kennesaw State University Why a Website and other tools for Communication with your clients

Teacher Created Website –Post project sheets for students/parents –Calendar of class activities (online lesson plans) for students/parents

Main blackboard graphic with today’s assignment Announcements posted on main blackboard Daily quote to teach character education –Opening sponge activity that trains students to use the site

Intheknowbio.com is a site created by one of EPHS science teachersIntheknowbio.com Good example of a quality teacher created website

address posted on site is filtered to keep student/parent contact separate from University student contact and from personal mail Filters help file the correspondence as it is received

Is it worth the effort to develop a site? It’s necessary in this era of accountability for teachers to have a classroom site, and to post their pages among those of the school or district site. The name of the school or district and its logo should appear on all pages to provide evidence of an official connection and a unifying element among all teachers’ sites at the school. While this is ideal – the question still remains especially if your district does not require it or will not really support it? YES! ! ! ! Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in education

District Support Sadly, when district sites, for whatever reason, do not include classroom teacher web pages, teachers often resort to other service providers—sometimes having to use their own funds to pay.

Design Considerations Menus should be used that include links to plug-ins for viewing certain content, such as PDF and audio/video files. Make sure to alert users to any pop-ups being used on the site. Text should be presented on the middle percent of the page in order to improve reading speed. Always avoid content that flashes, flickers, or blinks. Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in education

Design Considerations Do’s and Don’ts Pages should display the date on which they were last updated and include contact information. It’s helpful to add a page URL at the bottom of pages for those who print out content to have a record of its source, but this feature is not as commonly found. Teachers should be wary of posting advertisements on their pages that are unsuitable for students, and not to link to any sites with inappropriate advertisements. Keep our students in mind at all times. Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in education

Design Specifics Avoid razzle-dazzle multimedia effects, as they really add nothing to learning and often detract from learners’ information processing capabilities. A site’s content must be accessible, easily navigated, easily read, and credibly written. Users should need only a few clicks to find information. Patricia Deubel, PhD in computing technology in education

Draft Methods for Teachers to get on the Web Free or reasonably priced web hosting services geared for teachers

Teacherweb.com Teacher Web, Webhttp://teacherweb.com/ The fee for a TeacherWeb® site is $27 per year Icon driven, but they can be annoying to view

School Notes.com School notes Ad supported Good online documentation Several colleagues use this service

Schoolrack.com Schoolrack.com, Recommended and widely used Easy to get a good professional design

Inspiringteachers.com Inspiring Teachers -- y/webpages.htmlInspiring Teachers Offers free web pages for teachers. A membership includes 20MB of space, a free account, site-builder assistance, file management, and tools to promote the site.

Quia.com Quia.com, Same company for online quizzes $49 per year for both quizzes and website Create classes and track quiz results Create class pages for communicating with studentsclass pages Maintain an online schedule and calendar Upload images and audio clips Copy and modify any of Quia's two million activities to suit your own needs Share your activities with students, friends, colleagues, anyone in the world!

Classhomework Classhomework.com What is ClassHomework? We offer a place for students to access their teacher's website, pick up their assignments and link to great homework help. Teachers build the site at