Website Reflection

I created my first website this week and couldn't believe how easy it was. I was actually surprised that anyone can create a website for free. I used Weebly to create mine and I found it very easy. There were so many themes to choose from, including colours, fonts and format. The adding of pages and their content design was simple. Websites allow you to embed videos, pictures, hyperlinks, podcasts and has so many other features to allow users to be creative with. Below is the PMI I have created after developing a website.


PLUSES:

• can be created and used by anyone
• many templates to choose from
• can have many pages and links to other pages on website
• no one can comment or edit the website
• can embed videos, podcasts, hyperlinks, images etc.
• online storage of information for all students to access anytime, anywhere.

MINUSES:

• must have computer and internet to access
• cannot get feedback from others like wiki's and blog's
• cannot trace each students input into the creation of the website like a wiki

INTERESTING:

• Can be used by teachers as a class website to publish students work & news of what is happening in the class so parents can view.
• can be used by students to create an online project on a topic.
• allows children to be creative
• students can take their classroom and learning into cyber space giving them a different platform to work from.

As can be seen from the PMI table above, there are many benefits and interesting things you can do with websites. My website is one on multiculturalism. I embedded a video from youtube, created a few pages to navigate to and added some pictures. I can see how useful websites can be in teaching and learning. I believe students will find creating websites can be very engaging and fun. I have come across a few websites created by students and it is interesting how it has been used to teach students Here is a website that has links to student websites. These websites have been created by students from different grades and the topics covered range from sports to country, animals and there is even one that represents a hypothetical restaurant (maybe a home economics students?). 

Teachers can create class websites that provide parents with information on what's happening in class, what they are learning this week, who was student of the week?, upcoming effects etc. This could be a huge benefit to students who have gone a way for a week or two, or are ill and cannot come into class. I found a really good class website that you can access from here. I love the way the teacher has recorded the children singing 'Wheels on the bus go..." and the first thing you here when you open the websites are a class of children singing this song. It really shows just how fun learning can be. I think it will inspire students to work harder to have their work posted on the net so everyone can see and to be apart of creating this space will further engage them in learning. This is an excellent tool for constructivist learning.