Teachers are often asked by school districts to maintain a presence on the web. Which poses the question: Who is their primary audience? Meet Ima Parent, mother of fourth-grade Jimmy and seventh-grade Suzie. School has started and the kids are coming home with tales of woe of how much work they’re going to have this year. Ima decides to check out their teachers through the school websites they maintain. Firing up the ol’ browser she navigates to her daughter’s science teacher where she finds the class description and expectations. Surprisingly, it says nothing of the three hours of nightly homework and weekly exams Suzie has been describing. She also finds information on a more personal level which further dispels the image of barbed tail and horns painted by Suzie. Ima feels confident that Suzie will survive this seventh grade ordeal. She’s not so sure about herself.

Remember who your primary audience is: Ima Parent. She’ll visit your site frequently and sing your praises when it meets her needs. Update often!

A month into school and Jimmy casually mentions to mom that his teacher just sprung a project on him that’s due this Friday. It’s Wednesday. Jimmy also does not know much about the project as he has misplaced the sheet outlining the particulars. Thanks Jimmy. Ima surfs to her son’s classroom website hoping to shed some light on this predicament. Jimmy, beside her and noticeably uncomfortable, is shocked when mom easily finds the calendar of class events and a printable document describing the project. Apparently, it was assigned last week and it is in fact due on Thursday with a penalty for turning it in Friday. Damage control. Thankfully, the site also has pictures of previously turned in projects for ideas. Jimmy is wishing he knew how to block this particular site from viewing in the same way his mother blocked his favorite online gaming site.

A survey on Suzie’s social studies teacher’s site asks the students if they felt a recent field trip was worthwhile. Wow, a teacher who solicits the opinions of their students? She asks Suzie about it and she replies that this happens often and it’s no big deal. Suzie goes on to say that she has the same survey on her MySpace account and everyone thought it was the lamest field trip. After a thorough grilling regarding the MySpace account Ima decides she’s on information overload.

With the exception of a few stagnant webs, the sites that her children’s teachers maintain have become a valuable tool for Ima. She now has a level of knowledge that was once difficult to attain, often feeling more the FBI interrogator than the interested and involved mother.

Thoughts to Ponder

• The level of implementation varies wildly and teachers may easily be applauded or vilified. “Well, Mrs. Hastoomuchtimeonherhands had a website last year that kept me in the loop on everything!” Most schools have a teacher that has reached the status of “Resident Guru of Technology.” Two simple pieces of advice to help you cross those technology hurdles much easier:

• Reach out to the guru.
• Take copious notes.
  
• Stale websites abound among teachers and all it takes is one trip to a website with last year’s information and it may never be visited again. The web is too dynamic today to not update as often as possible.
• The ability to create and maintain a website depends heavily on the tools and support provided by a district. The playing field is not even among school districts where you’ll find older web editors and ftp protocol in some places and high-end content management systems in others. Find a way to make it happen. Speak with your technology department to see what it is they can do for you.
• Remember who your primary audience is: Ima Parent. She’ll visit your site frequently and sing your praises when it meets her need. Update often!
• Your secondary audience? Suzie and Jimmy. Train them to visit the site as a classroom feature of instruction. Start out small with a tease that gets them there then, as you get better, begin to involve them more as your guide to a better web. You’ll be surprised at how much this improves not only your website but the relationship you have with your students. To be sure, this is a comfortable medium for kids serving as their playground, channel of communication and occasional wall of graffiti.

This is certainly not the last word on this as I’ll explore in greater detail how to accomplish much of what I’ve described here in later posts. Please comment and tell us of your experiences good and not so good.

Picture Credit

Additional Resources: The Fourth Story , Page Creator by Google

Wavy lines, wavy lines. Now we’re in full flash-back mode. See the card catalog over there? Students are taking notes on index cards, only one idea for each card. Some are looking through book bibliographies to hunt down books for further study. Some are tracking down articles through those proprietary research databases. Just insert your copy card to print them out. Wavy lines, wavy lines.

Okay, we’re back. Collecting information and research sure is different than it used to be. In fact, it’s a lot different, according to a recent survey:

Seventy-one percent of teens say the Internet is their primary source for information for completing their most recent school project or report. Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that teens are increasingly using the Web as an essential study aid outside the classroom. For instance, 78 percent say the Internet regularly helps them with classroom assignments…

While this doesn’t mean completely eliminating the old methods of research and organization, it does mean that students should be taught how to effectively use the web for research. They are already doing it, so let’s help them do it better. But that’s not the only reason. Accessing information online will only grow in the future, and it will be imperative for their future careers to be able to effectively collect and organize information online.

If you are planning on your students doing any type of research in your class(es), then why not also introduce them to a way to organize that information online? You will not only be targeting language arts standards, but technology standards for information literacy as well. Here are 12 resources for information collection and organization:

Organizing bookmarks and websites. These sites replace Internet Explorer Favorites by allowing users to not only save a favorite site, but to also assign tags to sites and write a small description, all searchable later and accessible from any internet connection.

• Del.icio.us
• Yahoo! MyWeb

Organizing information. These sites allow users to copy and paste information and save online, eliminating the need to write down long internet addresses, print out pages, or copy down information onto paper.

• Google Notebook
• Clipmarks
• ThinkFree
• Zoho Office Suite
• Google Docs
• Ajax13

Wikis. These sites can adapt to multiple purposes, but can serve as a way to collect information from around the web. These sites are also ideal for collaboration among project partners, as a wiki is easily edited by others.

• PBwiki
• Wikispaces

Mind mapping. These sites allow users to create a visual map of related ideas. Once the information has been collected, a mind mapping site can help tie the information together.

• Bubbl.us
• MindMeister

All of these sites are free to use, and should be accessible behind a school firewall and filter. In most cases, your students will need email addresses to complete the free registration.

Which methods do you use to organize and collect information online? Are there any good web apps we left off the list? Let us know in the comments.

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