Deciding what kind of web site to create

Conductor: All aboard! All aboard! The train tour of web sites is about to depart! Climb aboard and be ready to check out some of the finest examples of web sites made by teachers and students in schools. We've got roaring sites that feature entire schools, flashy sites that feature classrooms, majestic sites that feature individual students, teachers - and an array of sites on projects from abacuses to zucchinis.

For safety's sake, I'll ask you to keep your hands, feet and other body parts inside the train at all times.

Hold on tight!

What's up at our school?

Here's the first web site - chock-full of color and activity! There's a picture of the school - nice old building, isn't it? Some cute little kindergarten kids running in a race at the annual sport's day. There is a group of students in the school's tree-planting project. We'll just slow down a bit, so you can get a good look.

This kind of web site gives visitors a general introduction to the school. How many grades are there? How many students attend the school? Are there any special projects going on? How about sports teams? Where is the school? What is the history of the school? Who are all the teachers? You get the picture!

This type of web site can work very well as the school's first site. Once you've started out with something like this, you can create new sites and link them to this one. Maybe you'll want to link classroom sites to a school site - look over there! We're at the classroom site section.

What's going on in our classroom?

Well! Here we have a classroom site featuring the work of many students. The kids really seem to like this exposure, don't they? It's like having even more than 15 minutes of fame! They get to go back and see their accomplishments again and again if they want to, and even show it off to their parents. Sigh... I wish we had web sites back when I was a kid. I could've been a famous poet, you know?

Ah, yes. We've got the weekly winner of the math contest - complete with a photo taken by digital camera! Very nice. And here are some short stories about "What I Did Last Summer". A few students' cartoons... And, look! Isn't that sweet - a picture of the teacher at home with his pet cat. There are also some details on the class - how many students, where they're from, what they like and dislike about school, etcetera. As you can see, there are a lot of things you can feature on a classroom site. You and your students will be able to come up with a ton of ideas together!

Individual student and teacher pages

Look at all the eyes staring out at you. All those pictures of people on personal web pages! I always like to see a picture of the person who's made his or her own web page. I'm always curious about the way people look. It's like talking on the phone and wondering what the person on the other end of the line really looks like.

Individual pages can contain just about anything - and everything. For example, you can include photos of yourself, your dog, your brother, or your brother's dog. Perhaps you'd opt for a written story of your life with your favorite poem, or your favorite recipe.

You can have links to your favorite web sites, a list of your favorite hockey players, an audio clip of you playing the kazoo, a video clip of you doing the Mexican Hat Dance, a photo of that giant pumpkin in your garden - whew! I'm losing my breath over here! Anyway, the point is, you can make an individual web page, and whatever you put on it is entirely up to you. Like each person in the world, each web page is unique.

Various projects