Samantha Biskachs Website Analysis and Reflection Biskach 1

Classroom Website Analysis and Reflection:

A Digital Supplement for Learning in the ELA Classroom

Samantha Lorraine Biskach

6th Grade Language Arts

EDTC 600

University of Maryland University College

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Classroom Website Analysis and Reflection:

A Digital Supplement for Learning in the ELA Classroom

Website link: http://sbiskach.weebly.com/

Brief overview

When a teacher chooses his or her career, it should be with a heart that longs for

enlightening younger generations with a love for learning. Education has evolved from sitting in

a one-room schoolhouse, to educators using the most advanced technology to further students

advancement of learning objectives. It is for this reason that with the education profession

becoming increasingly technology based, a teacher must provide students with the ability to gain

access to the classroom from the comfort of their own home. Developing an educator website

that not only explains the classroom procedures, but also brings attention additional learning

supplements to students and various audiences, is a vital too for teaching in the 21st century.

Analysis of goals and rationale for building a classroom website

Becoming a teacher and advocate for efficacious procedures that support student

learning, I believe I have lived up to this aspiration by using instructional technology, in the form

of a classroom website, to supplement my the teachings of my content. Creating my own

classroom website took time to develop in order to be an easy-to-use online tool for my students;

as well as for my students parents looking for assignment clarification, weekly happenings in

my classroom and any other pertinent information they may need for their student to be

successful in my class. Before I began the creation process of my website, I solidified the goals I

would set for what my Weebly (the platform used to develop my site) would bring across to

viewers and how I would meet the needs of my multiple audiences (Weebly, 2014). First, I

intended my online environment to be user friendly and welcoming to a 6th grade language arts

audience. Likewise, parents would also be welcomed to my website, with the additional goal of
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providing these viewers with their own Parent Page that provided plenty of information

regarding my classroom. Should a parent have any questions or comments to me about their

childs learning, it was my hope that the Biskach classroom website would be the first place they

navigate to. Then, should any of my viewers need to contact me for one-on-one discussion, my

Contact Information and Links tab made collaboration and connections with my students and

parent more available. The goal of opening more communication with my scholarly cohorts and

their guardians was my ultimate objective for providing my classroom medium.

Additionally, I knew from the beginning that I wanted my website to recognize myself as

the teacher of English language arts (ELA). Ambitious with the idea that my website would be a

supplement for learning for my students, I included tabs that took users to Language Arts

Content. Here my aspiring young scholars could discover external links I posted, and was an

advocate of, for extra studying opportunities. For example, under my Language Arts Content

tab, I included all items with this subject matter in mind. Many ELA topics covered throughout

the year include writing and grammar. Since these are curriculum based and an integral element

of our studies, I considered these vital subjects to represent them on the site. For both topics,

links outside of my website were included, and cited, for students benefit. When it came to

writing, I included definitions of the 6-Traits of Writing and a download of the PARCC rubric

students could print out for their own essay development. Due to my essay grading processes

assessing students with the Common Core State Standards PARCC rubric, having this document

available for students would improve their writing skills tremendously. Although I had already

given students hard copies of all documents included on my website, a teacher must always have

a plan for students with a tendency to misplace items.

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Advancement of student learning with technological supplements

Along with document downloads, I also wanted to make my classroom website

interactive, while including supplements for student learning in a flipped classroom variety.

According to Gorman (2012), when a student finds themselves completing homework on

concepts they do not have full understanding of, they have to wait until the next day to ask the

important questions; however, with an extensive wait time as this, many learners would become

overwhelmed and shut down to the assignments (Gorman, 2012). It is for this reason that I

included hypermedia to my website that would navigate students to external areas on the web,

which ultimately advance and support their learning. The Strategies for Writers website, that I

provide a link for on the classroom site, is a foundation platform for where I develop many of my

teaching power points, worksheets and supplements for teaching writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2014).

Revealing this website to my students allows them to explore the information presented in order

to find notes, extra practice and other free resources that could be applied to their learning. To

make my website more interactive, I considered any extra practice students completed on the

links I provided incentive opportunities. If my students show the motivation to complete optional

assignments to grow their knowledge base and bring them to me for assessment, I explained on

my website that I would reward them for their efforts. Furthermore, providing supplemental

videos and other visuals students could view would solidify their familiarity of language arts

concepts, almost as much as the extra practice assignments would as well. With such additions to

the site, this made for a kid-friendly and engaging design for student participation.

Design decisions were made according to how I could best provide ease of

comprehension to my 6th grade students and their parents. Interacting with the Weebly platform

made my creation process a positive experience due to its surprisingly easy and affordable way
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to create a site as unique as my teaching is (Weebly, 2014). With no cost to me, as there is a

free option of creation with the Weebly site, I was able to keep the needs of my multiple

audiences and learning styles of students in mind. Since I tend to include multimedia

presentations and videos in my lessons, I thought that such should be included on my digital

resource as well. An example of this refers to our yearlong grammar study, where my teaching

pedagogy differentiates to learners when I provide video supplements to support various learning

styles. One of my students favorites included the School House Rock renditions of the parts of

speech and other conventions related topics; therefore, I posted the video link to my site.

Currently, the showing of the Conjunction Junction video by School House Rock will aid with

their understanding of grammar topics, but as the progression of the curriculum continues, I plan

to change grammar videos to support the current part of speech topic under discussion (Disney,

2011). Likewise, to keep the strengths of my website at its most constructiveness, I plan to

continuously update topics on my site that would help with my students learning of concepts, as

well as keep them up to date with classroom events and occurrences.

Reflection to learning and application of the EDTC 600 materials

Before my current version of my classroom website, I was not incredibly devoted to

providing such a valuable resource for my students. It was not because I simply did not want to,

it was more of my inability to comprehend the best procedures of developing a classroom

website. Being able to discuss family-school collaboration with colleagues was a way to further

my understanding of how important providing a collaborative medium as a website to my

educational audiences is. According to Belcastro (2014), if parents are more connected to the

school and what the school is trying to accomplish, then the parents can reinforce information at

home for the students (Belcastro, 2014). Many times have I had students come to school not
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prepared with the materials they need for class; however, if I provide students and parents with a

website stating my expectations and keeping viewers up to date with current happenings in the

classroom, parents would be able to reinforce this knowledge to their young scholars. Ultimately,

by having parents and teachers collaborate together on school topics through the use of a

classroom website, students will be on track for successful academic experiences.

When taking part in a EDTC 600 course discussion on family-school collaboration, I was

able to again apply my understanding of the importance of a classroom website to my online

creation. From fellow colleagues in the teaching profession, I identified similarities towards our

varying school districts. The majority of my classmates in EDTC 600 explained that their

schools present updated information to their very own websites. As stated by Belcastro (2014),

her schools website gives important dates, reminders, policies and procedures, and a lot of

updated pictures (Belcastro, 2014). Due to this digital representation of the school being so

visually appealing, users are able to comprehend the information shown with high degrees of

ease. It was for this reason that I felt the need to make my site visually pleasing with providing

current information that would apply to my students. Likewise, it was from the family-school

collaboration discussion posts that I was able to go even further with ideas of how I could keep

my students in-the-know of classroom updates. The ability to provide my site with a Twitter

personal learning network account allows students and parents to get up-to-the-minute updates

about what is happening at [their] school (Belcastro, 2014). Although I have never created or

interacted with Twitter, including a live feed on my website may be something I keep in

consideration for the future of my website.

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The beginnings of the Biskach site and looking to the future

When first told that I was to construct an original website that could be used for students

advancement of learning in my language arts classroom, I admit to having a certain level of

apprehension. Since I had barely made a website before, I took everything I learned in my EDTC

600 course and applied it to the creation of my educational and digital resource. Keeping true to

the Roblyer and Doering (2013) recommended web page development sequence, this was a

step-by-step process I used when maturing my classroom website (Roblyer and Doering, 2013).

Knowing that the first steps in developing a website are the most difficult and important, I

planned out a storyboard type of procedure by physically making a detailed sketch of the

content on each page of [my] site (Roblyer and Doering, 2013). Then, I continued to follow the

remaining steps set forth by Roblyer and Doering (2013): design and layout, development,

testing, publishing, and the maintaining of the site (Roblyer and Doering, 2013). In reference to

the latter step of website development, this is an action I will continue to become engaged with

as I look to the future of my classroom website. This tool is not a supplement for teaching I plan

to disregard once I have come to the end of my EDTC course. I believe that such an invaluable

resource will continue to help me stay organized for school years to come, as well as keep my

scholarly audiences updated to my classroom expectations, procedures and English language arts

content. In fact, once I had completed my site and revealed it to my students, tracking site

statistics revealed increases in student access. For the month of April alone, I had a spike in

viewers, thus showing the educational values in providing such resources to my students.

Conclusion

According to the Common Core State Standards, all students must be college and career

ready before graduation from high school (CCSS, 2014). Since this is a curriculum I base my
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teachings around, the mentioned tagline of the Core is something I continue to keep at the

forefront of my classroom pedagogy. Not only must I provide all students with the

understandings of the English language arts classroom while physically in school, it is vital to

provide each learner with supplements they may access from the privacy of their own home.

Since society has evolved into a more digital world, bringing online supplements to my students

attention will aide them on their grade-school experience of technological interactions. To me,

creating a classroom website was initially just an assignment required to complete for a graduate

level course, however, by the conclusion of the task, I was able to identify the overwhelming

strength it gave my students on their pathway to educational excellence. Students who may not

have solidified their knowledge of the concepts taught in my class would have an ease of

experience navigating through the Biskach Classroom Website for all materials and supplements

they could ever need. I have come to the realization that a classroom website is not just another

way to introduce students to their teacher and set up of the class. It is also a crucial supplement

for enhancing students language arts skills, mastering learning objectives, and collaborating

with their teachers on topics necessary for success in the classroom setting.
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References

Belcastro, L., (2014, April 11). Strong communication. Message posted to

https://learn.umuc.edu/d2l/le/11844/discussions/threads/529076/View.

Common Core State Standards (2014). English language arts standards. Retrieved from

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy

Disney Educational Productions (2011, Dec 8). [Video File] Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoBE-E8VOc

Gorman, M., (2012). 21st century education technology and learning. Retrieved from

http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/flipping-the-classroom-a-goldmine-of-

research-and-resources-to-keep-you-on-your-feet/

Roblyer, M.D. & Doering, A.H., (2013). Integrating educational technology into teaching (6th

edition). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Weebly (2014). About weebly. Retrieved from http://www.weebly.com/about/

Zaner-Bloser (2014). Strategies for writers. Retrieved from https://sfw.z-b.com/resources/student