Use Blogger to Create a Simple Class Website
A class website is a great way to extend the classroom - into your student's living rooms, to their parents, and even to their cell phones.
Did you know that kids can surf the web - and potentially check your class website - on their cell phones?
This makes the class website a prime place to start implementing technology in the classroom. Of course, it can also be a particularly daunting one. Professional web design can take years or practice to master - but don't worry if you have no experience.
By setting simple goals and using freely available resources, you can create your first class website in a matter of minutes. No experience required.
Setting Goals - What Will the Website Do?
As with any good plan, it helps to start by outlining our goals. Since we're assuming you have little to no experience with web design, we'll start simple.
The primary purpose of the website will be to spread information to students - like class notes, homework assignments, project due dates, etc.
Here's a list to keep in mind:
- Daily or weekly recaps of class notes
- Daily or weekly posting of homework
- "About Me" page to share contact information with parents
- Copy of Course Syllabus
- Links to useful resources
That should be enough to get started. If you want to see what the finished product will look like, go to Mr. Rock's Blog.
Where Are We Making This?
Like I mentioned before, we're going to make use of some freely available resources. That means that a) you won't have to pay to host your website, and b) the computer will do all the work to make the website for you.
Open up a new window in your browser and go to blogger.com. That's right, you're going to make a blog - it's the perfect format for our requirements.
Here's a screenshot of Blogger's website, with the "Sign Up" button circled.
Step One: Create an account. You may already have one - you can use a Google account (i.e. gmail). If not, click on the orange arrow that says, "Create your blog now."
Fill in the short form to create an account. When you're done, you should be sent to the second step of the process.
Step Two: You should be on a page titled, "Name Your Blog." Name your website whatever you want, and then choose a memorable name for your URL. This is what students will type in to get to the website.
Try your "Teacher Name" - i.e. Mr-Rock or Mrs-Jones. If those are taken, try adding some information about your class - like Mr-Rock-US1. Just remember to make it short enough that your students can remember it and type it in correctly.
Step Three: Choose a template. There are about a dozen pre-made templates for you to choose from. If you get brave later, you can modify it and personalize it - for now just pick something that you think looks nice.
Voila! Your blog is created. Now to add some content to our class website.
Creating Some Content - Adding Pages or "Posts"
Here's a screenshot of the "Post Editing" screen.
A "blog" - also known as a weblog - has a special way of organizing information on your website.
Every time you post something (a new "post" or "page"), it appears in a list of posts. These are sorted by time and date - so that the latest post is placed at the top of the list.
This makes it perfect for a daily or weekly recap. Each time you make a general post, it appears at the top of the list. So if you make a post every Friday to recap the week, everything is automatically sorted and organized for you.
Right now, you should be looking at a blank white box for text. Just type in what you want to appear (perhaps a recap of the rules and expectations discussed on the first day of class), along with a title, and click the "Publish Post" button - and you're done. It's posted for you.
Click on the "View Blog" button to see what the finished product looks like.
Final Touches
At the upper right corner, you can see the "New Post" and Customize" options circled.
At this point, you're ready to start posting on a daily or weekly basis. When you open up your Blog, you should see a link titled "New Post" at the top right corner of the screen. Click that to open up the editing window and type up a new post.
In the meantime, there are other things you can do. Somewhere on the screen, you should see an "About Me" or "Profile" section. Click on the "Edit" button (it looks like a wrench and a screwdriver) to change it. You should enter a very brief bio of yourself, and here you could include your school e-mail address - so that parents and students can contact you about school related business.
If you click on the "Customize" link at the top right corner, you'll find a bunch of options you can play with.
In this screenshot, the "Add an Element" option is circled on the layout page.
For now, we want to add a set of links to resources that your students might find useful. Click the "Add Page Element" link and choose "Link List" from the options.
A new window will pop up to help you build the list of links. Enter a title for the list, and then add whatever links you want the students to have access to - maybe the school district's website, some research resources, and other sites about your subject area.
When you're done, hit save and then view the blog to see how it changed.
Play Around, Experiment
That's about it for the starter web site. You've got your system set up for daily posts, you provided your contact info, and you created a set of resources for students.
The rest is up to you. Browse through the system and play with the different options.
In the "Customize" section you can add extra stuff to your website - like an RSS feed from a newspaper, a poll (or quiz?) for your students to respond to, a slideshow of pictures from class, etc.
You can also drag and drop elements of the page (like your "Blog Archive" or "Link List") to change the layout - use your imagination and see what happens.
Congratulations. You just made your first class website. It's a great first step, and once you've mastered this... you can move onto something more advanced next time.
Add A Comment
moe left this on January 31, 2008, 12:33 am
nice post
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