This website will be for my kindergarten classroom. The website will provide access to information for kindergarten students and their families. Second, it will all me as the clasroom teacher to update students and families on important dates, learning in our classroom, and answer common questions about our school day.
The target audience for this website will be classroom student's families. This group will be mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles and anyone who is interested in our class news or needs to find out information about our class. I think the adults living with the student will refer to the website most often. However, if an aunt/uncle/grandparent wants to attend a musical performance, go to lunch with a student, find out what time school begins/ends they will also refer to this website to find that information.
Four parents and one teacher completed a survey to about classroom websites. Members want to be able to find: teacher contact information, daily schedule, PE days, Library days, lunch menu and specific times for beginning of school, lunch and end of school.
What would be 2 pieces of information you would want to find on your child's classroom website?
How often would you visit your child's classroom website?
What links would you like to be able to find in your child's classroom website?
What information about the school would you like to have on your child's classroom website?
What content would be most beneficial for you on your child's classroom website?
Mrs. Bess's Kindergarten-For a simple layout design, I really like this website. It has a banners on the top of importanat information (leads to different pages) and is two columns. The main column with weekly news and the right column with information and important links.
Mrs. Moote's Kindergarten-For color scheme, this is a website that I would avoid. This is also the area that I will struggle with the most. "Design" is not something that I am very good at. I do know that I would like to have "soft" colors and not "bold" ones like this website.
Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten-I like this design as well. The background of the "notebook" paper seems simple, yet fitting for the website. I also the the big banner at the top.
Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten-I like the "About Me" section of this website. The feedback that I gained from my survey is that families want to know about their child's teacher.
Mrs. Perches's Class-For content, this website I had some ideas that I liked. She included her class schedule and a link to her book orders. These were items that families wanted to be able to find on my website when asked on my survey.
After reviewing different classroom webistes and surveying 5 families on what they would want to see on their child's classroom website, I decided to build the following pages:
Home
-This page will have the top menu navigation bar and 2 columns. The main column will give weekly updates "just like the news page" and the right column will give teacher contact information and important links.
About Mrs. Ottis-This page will include personal information about the teacher (degrees, family, hobbies, etc.). Families wrote that they wanted to know about the teacher.
Daily Schedule-This page will list the times and subjects taught daily, this was another important aspect that parents reported on my survey
News-This page will give a weekly update on what the class is studying.
Games/Links-This page will give families access to games/links that we use in class. Parents reported they wanted to be able to find useful links/tools to help their child with the curriculum.
In order to make this website user friendly to families and easy to navigate. I will use the same navigation menu at the top of each page. Each page will be the same, except the content will change. I want it to be like Mrs. Bess's Kindergarten page. The tabs at the top will remain on each page and families will be able to click on "Home" "About Mrs. Ottis" "Daily Schedule" "Games/Links" and "News." The home page and the news page will be the same. This way when families visit the site it will seem uniform and shouldn't take them a long time to navigate through and find what they're look for.
I want to make all 3 of my content pages the same layout. About Mrs. Ottis, Daily Schedule and Games/Links will be one column each. They will contain the same top menu as the home page. The daily schedule will be vertical list with times of each subject. The Mrs. Ottis page will have paragraphs about my teaching career, education and family. The games/links page will be a vertical list of websites/games/links that we use in our classroom that students/families can access at home. The News page will be the exact same as the "home" page "weekly" update. The Homepage will have 2 columns. The main column will give weekly updates, and the right column will have teaher contact information and important links. Here is my design layout: Design Layout.
I am going to try and create the banner on my own with free images. The rest of the pictures will be pictures that I have taken. I think the only picture that I will include will be one of me.
I will use soft colors in my design. The background color will be light greenish #d2ddcd. I will use the triadic colors light blue and light pink. I want my page to appear clean and soft (not overpowering). I want to keep my page as simple as possible.
Mary Ottis
Email Mrs. Ottis