Image (modified): Muhammad Rafizeldi CC BY-SA 3.0
Websites are perfect avenues for students to collate, organise, present and share their work with a wider audience, making their school work readily accessible to their extended family and potentially to a global audience.
When students create websites they also become more familiar with the technical vocabulary regarding websites and develop their web-based literacy skills.
When students create websites they also become more familiar with the technical vocabulary regarding websites and develop their web-based literacy skills.
Below: A website created by an eleven year-old student to present an integrated studies project.
Note the use of footnotes and referencing. Click here to visit the site.
Note the use of footnotes and referencing. Click here to visit the site.
As shown in the websites above and below, students can organise their website content into columnar or tabular form, sub-pages, and allow users to navigate via hyperlinked text, buttons, search boxes and navigation bars.
Students can work in groups to create and upload website content. In such scenarios, as demonstrated in the website above (click here to visit the site), all members can be responsible for the homepage, and individuals can be each assigned a sub-page, wherein they contribute content in their own words as well as supporting images. All group members are then jointly responsible for viewing each other's work for quality and assurance purposes.
As part of this online collaboration, students can arrange to communicate at home simultaneously with each other to discuss tasks and content using a variety of methods, including:
As part of this online collaboration, students can arrange to communicate at home simultaneously with each other to discuss tasks and content using a variety of methods, including:
- Fuze Meeting for iPad: Participate in live video meetings with up to 25 people using iPads
- Chatzy: Private temporary chat rooms
- TodaysMeet: Private temporary chat rooms
- Facebook chat
- MSN Messenger
Considerations
Website Hosts/Providers
The prevalence of a wide variety of free website hosts, who provide users with easy to use drag and drop templates, means that even the youngest of students can easily create and/or maintain a website.
Users can simply drag and drop text boxes, images, online video content (e.g. YouTube), maps and share downloadable files onto their website.
Some free website hosts/providers include:
Ideally students should explore the features and templates that a website provider/host offers users. However, before settling on using a desired host/provider, it is of vital importance that students read the terms and conditions from the host/provider, as whilst the service may be free, the catch may be that:
Some free website hosts/providers include:
Ideally students should explore the features and templates that a website provider/host offers users. However, before settling on using a desired host/provider, it is of vital importance that students read the terms and conditions from the host/provider, as whilst the service may be free, the catch may be that:
- the host/provider owns any content uploaded, or
- advertising in the form of pop-ups or banners may appear on the hosted website, advertising which may not always contain age-related/suitable content/themes.
Social Networking Enhancements
Embedded social networking plugins also allow students to provide those who visit their website the ability to "like", "tweet" or share their content via various other platforms, including LinkedIn and Google+. These plugins can be vital in promoting both student and school work to extend beyond the classroom and into their social network of family and friends.
The plugins can be inserted using the 'Embed Code' function available on the dashboard of most website providers. Click on the relevant social media entity to access a plugin's HTML code:
The plugins can be inserted using the 'Embed Code' function available on the dashboard of most website providers. Click on the relevant social media entity to access a plugin's HTML code:
Search Enhancements
If students or teachers are going to be making websites and/or blogs then users need to be able to quickly find the relevant content. There are four approaches to making websites/blogs more search-friendly:
- List pages in alphabetical order.
- Provide a website search engine (such as Google's Custom Search Engine).
- Provide search functions on each page (such as this free Javascript solution).
- Provide a site guide for easy navigation of a large website (e.g. see The Age's Site guide).
Websites vs Blogs
Unlike blogs (pictured left), websites allow users to have more creative control, giving them the freedom to create a webpage or many webpages without their work being sorted automatically into chronological order.
Like blogs, parents and families can still be notified about student contributions to their websites by simply emailing the web address to the new content.
Like blogs, parents and families can still be notified about student contributions to their websites by simply emailing the web address to the new content.
Interestingly, the best features of both websites and blogs can be combined if the online host/provider offers users both a blog and a website (the host of this website, Weebly, allows this). Therefore students can create new content or update existing content on their website and all 'followers' who have subscribed to their blog can be notified when the student makes a simple blog post notifying them of the location of new content (this is how the blog on Effective Curriculum Ideas works).
Learning About & Obeying
Copyright, Creative Commons and Public Domain Laws
When students start to create online products such as websites, they are bound to use a variety of multimedia, such as images and videos. Therefore it is of utmost importance that teachers educate themselves and their students about the areas of copyright, Creative Commons and the public domain.
Visit the student websites above (1 | 2) to examine how they have adhered to copyright laws, and then click here to visit the section regarding these important areas.
Visit the student websites above (1 | 2) to examine how they have adhered to copyright laws, and then click here to visit the section regarding these important areas.