Stealing Ideas

This week, I looked at website's for several elementary teachers. I was particularly impressed by http://www.pb5th.com from a 5th grade class in Florida and http://www.jsd.k12.ak.us/hbv/classrooms/Fontanella/fontanejhbvHome.html from a looping Kindergarten class in Juneau, AK.
What I liked about pb5th was the way the teacher integrated the website into every day and every week. He had a poll for students to vote on. He had lots of pictures. He had daily assignments. But the coolest thing was the daily entry by a kid in the class. No names, just initials. A different kid each day has the job to keep a log of what is going on in the class. They describe everything from the attendance to when the class goes to specials. The student entry I read also explained that he and another student were putting grades into the computer for their teacher. I really want to do something like this with my site. I think kids need to have a reason to write. So much of what we have them write in this day of FCAT Writes is totally abstract. If they could just practice communicating an idea, they could better understand the function of writing. They could understand why we want them to learn how to write.

The other site that I loved had a super word wall activity page. I have posted all the words our students learn throughout the year on our website. But our ideas for activities don't have any punch. Mr. Fontanella gave credit to Tara Olinger for the ideas he published. He kindly provided a link to her site--which didn't work!! Anyway, the ideas he "stole" from Mrs. Olinger will definitely come in handy as I "steal" them for our existing word list pages.

Mrs. Ritter's First Grade Critters http://http://www.myschoolonline.com/site/0,1876,23847-107973-26-2859,00.html was full of information. She had student work examples, a list of supplies (I'm stealing this idea, too), and the daily schedule along with lots and lots of other pages. I was interested in her curriculum page. They have adopted a textbook that we are voting on in our district. I really wanted to e-mail her and ask her about how she liked the series, but there was no e-mail address for her. There was a guest book, but the link did not work properly. She really needed a way for people to contact her.

In looking at the sites, only pb5th was completely up to date. While there had obviously been a lot of work on the other sites, and lots of projects posted, the teachers had not kept updating. I personally know this takes a measure of discipline, especially when you stay an hour past contract time every night just to get your basic responsibilities finished. The pb5th teacher had students working on the site every day, so he was motivated to keep it fresh. A good site has a reason for visitors to keep coming back. The teacher in this case has a reason to keep working on the site.

I am glad that I had a chance to explore and find good stuff to "steal". Actually, these sites have copyright notices. I will borrow and gladly give credit in accordance with our district's web publishing policy.

I still need to publish my web presence for this week's assignment. In the meantime, here is the grade level website that I maintain at our school. http://highmail.highlands.k12.fl.us/~daviss1/ The creator tool we have on the district server has good points and bad points. We are learning all the time. I'm sure this week's experiences will help us make our site much better.