Evaluation of an Educational Website

Last week in class one of the assignments that I had to complete was an evaluation of a website's appropriateness for my  future classroom. Judging a website for its potential to be used by students as a learning tool was not something that I have done before. Although, I have judged sites in my mind based on the appearance of a page, and thought about ways to improve them prior to this. I tend to prefer that pages are set up in an orderly manner, spaced well and that the colors compliment each other. Also, it is essential to me that the site was crafted thoughtfully, so to give a pattern to it. It is surprising how many sites for teachers I saw that did not looked very professional.

A perfect example of a site that is visually pleasing, as well as easy to navigate is the site I did my evaluation on, ABCya.com. This site attracted me from the moment that it loaded on to my computer. I was enticed by it from vibrant colors, fun shapes, and easy to recognize navigation. Additionally, I really liked how the creators separated the games by grade level, and gave each grade their own ballon link prominently placed on the home page. I felt that these aspects would make this site less problematic for children of a young age to navigate on their own once shown how to by an adult.


Finding the information the questionnaire asked about was a breeze up until the very last section. Filling out the "Accessibility" part of the website evaluation was something that I did not have the resources to do. Luckily, my professor talked about what to do if we did not. So,  I put a question mark into the answer blank to make it clear that I cannot find the answer.

After completing this activity I feel that my ability to evaluate websites for my future classroom's use  has slightly improved. The reason that I feel that I did not grow more was that before doing this evaluation I was already aware of most of the qualities that websites used in a classroom should have. As I was working on the evaluation I kept thinking that the criteria for sites was obvious. However, one part of the evaluation that I had not thought about prior to this lesson was to check the date the site was last revised to make sure it is current. Additionally, I had not considered how websites' navigation could cause issues for students if inconsistent from page to page. A question on this evaluation opened my eyes to this, though. As a future educator of young children it is especially important to remember this, since children of this age often will lack the necessary experience with computers to be proficient on them.

Wikis on Wikis

Before entering this class I had used a Wiki before though, I did not realize it. The type of Wiki that I had used is one that most people have, and most without realizing it like me. This Wiki is known as Wikipedia. Sound familiar? However, despite having used this Wiki before I have never personally edited any of the content on one of these Wikis. 

Now though, after a couple weeks of being in my TPTE class I have edited a Wiki.  On this Wiki I, with the rest of my class, put information about myself and a picture. Doing this was pretty easy. The set up of the site was very simple; getting the picture on there was the most difficult part for me. However, after a couple tries and a little help from my teacher I figured it out. How I did this was by placing the picture on my desk top, and then just dragging over to where I was typing. Additionally, following this class I have now looked at a variety of Wikis made by teachers, and read tips for creating them. I particularly enjoyed the tips that were provided by The Edublogger in the article "Create the Perfect Class Website in 30 Minutes or Less." I particularly loved how at the end of this as step 6 she reminded readers to turn in their subscriptions, because that would be something I would totally forget to do!

As someone who hopes to be a Kindergarten teacher I do not see myself using Wiki in the classroom very much. The reason for this is due to the children's typing abilities, which would make the use of these for this age kind of impractical. Though, I do think that a Wiki would be a great way to promote communication between the parents and myself. Creating a Wiki that parents could use to talk to one another and me about things like their children's reading practice, math, etc. would be a great way to promote communication in the classroom.

For anyone that would like to read this article you can at: The Edublogger

Introduction

Hello,

I am Megan, and I am a senior at the University of Tennessee. I am going to school to be a teacher. Recently, I was accepted into the Pre-K-3 teaching licensure program, which was very exciting. Ideally, after I graduate with my masters I would like to teach Kindergarten, but I love all the other lower elementary grades, too. The reason I am creating this blog is for one of my major's required classes, TPTE 486. In it I will write about what happens as I try to conquer the tech world with the help of my professor Dr. O'Bannon. Some of the topics that I expect to learn about this semester is how to create wikis, make flip-books, create charts and other information that will help me use technology appropriately in my own classroom.

Enjoy!