As a teacher, I believe that an effective way to extend learning time, create student interest, as well as open up the lines of communication with parents and families is through the use of classroom websites. Currently I use a wiki page with various links to each academic subject, Internet resources, notes to parents, etc. as my classroom website.
At first I had no idea how to develop my wiki space or how to navigate around the site once it was created. What I personally like about the wiki spaces is that they are free for educations and super easy to create, maintain, and explore. My students LOVED doing their homework on the wiki space as well as study for tests, review classroom notes, look up their assignments and locate educational resources that pertained to what we were learning in the classroom. Parents loved the fact that they were able to check-in and see what their children were studying and what they had for homework each night. Parents also loved that I set up a separate discussion area just for parents.
This is a link to the site I used to create my wiki page http://www.wikispaces.com/content/teacher/
I love the fact that you use the wiki for the classroom. It is almost like the students are doing online work and they can not only learn the information in the classroom but then review it if they need to online. I sure that the parents are thrilled that they can track their child's progress but also have their own discussions and ask questions on the parent wiki! This is such a great idea and I am going to be a classroom teacher for the first time this year so I may have to make wikis too!
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