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// Karen Bolch //
 * Simple Websites for your Classroom/Portfolio[[image:school bus.png width="120" height="131" align="left"]] **

Most school districts now require classroom teachers and staff to maintain a website. There are several tools you can use to do so easily : google sites, weebly, wix,, square space, wikispaces to name just a few that are free or low cost. Wikispaces is very simple and user friendly - my personal favorite for teachers. Please go to Wikispaces.com and create an account for yourself. You want a free educator's account (no ads), protected. click the I promise k-12 education box. You will automatically get a classroom space - which I don't much care for. So go to SETTINGS, and select ....looks like a website AND click the box for public. You want to be the only one to edit for now - if you choose to share it down the road with a team you can change that later.

You can use it as... ·an online presence for your classroom for parents and students, post assignments, keep a class calendar with birthdays and important deadlines and holidays, spelling lists, resources, favorite links, blogs, permission slips, forms for parents, videos or photos from class field trips, etc. ·A tool to keep resources for yourself—embed videos you want to use, instructions for projects. ·A showcase for digitized student work—word docs, power point, photographic essays, audio files, movies, ads · An online portfolio for yourself with your resume, bio, samples of student work, publications, articles, your blog link, resources you are willing to share with other teachers, etc. or as a collaborative workspace to share with students/team members - you can lock down certain pages and invite an email address to edit others You may have as many wikis/websites as you wish !!

students know to go to her home page to start any activity on their netbooksere In order to find classroom sites from other teachers search in the wikispaces box for "4th grade" - there are thousands of creative people out there using wikis very well. It is okay to steal ideas !
 * Here is an example of one of my previous teachers using wiki as a classroom website **

·An idea for the website (s) names and how you want to use them (keep in mind that as you change schools you can take your wiki with you as it is just a link on the school website or a homepage for your current classroom computers) ·Copies of electronic files of student work to post ·List of favorite links for student access · Photos/Clipart you might like to post
 * What you need before you start: **

·NEVER use students’ last names online ·Have parent’s sign a permission slip for posting student photos /blogs/etc. ·Start with a home/ Intro page and keep it clean and simple It doesn't always look like what you input - different browsers change things Fonts don't transfer - html only can recognize a few - keep it at 12- 14 points for easy viewing Type in WORD first for spelling - it's awful to see an error online - very unprofessional
 * Things to remember: **

My Blank Test Page Sample to demo options

__ http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Wikis __ __ http://jabernethy.wikispaces.com/ __ __ [] __ __ http://mcwhorterblog.wikispaces.com/ __ __ [] __ __ http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/Wikis __ a bank of many samples __ http://jenniferpepper.wikispaces.com/ __ a third grade teacher h__ [|ttps://ep-storytown.wikispaces.com/] __ a resource for many grade levels . Feel free to ask me questions anytime ! I am constantly learning myself. :) things also change constantly so be aware of new updates ! A classroom website is only as good as it is maintained - keep it current or it will speak ill of you !!
 * Great Teacher wikis to get ideas from: **
 * When you are done populating your site, copy, paste and email me the link from the address bar so I can link it to the Centennial website as soon as possible **