My Classroom website

 Here is the link to my website draft.

Here is the link to my Pecha Kucha

     Let me start with a little about me and what I do. I am a 38 year old, married  mother of 3 who is going to school for a Masters in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages).  I am currently a special education and multilingual learner teacher in the city of Woonsocket. I have students with a variety of needs who speak a variety of languages at home. The grade levels in my classroom are kindergarten through second grade.

 As I was thinking about this project I started with my why. I believe that students learn when they have a community where everyone feels welcomed, important and heard. While there is more to my why, this is the specific point that I wanted to focus on. I took some time to think about what that means and how I will connect with everyone. I already have a solid connection with all of my students in the classroom, we really focus on community building when we are together in person or online. Now I need to think about how to include parents into our classroom community. Having a positive relationship with parents creates a positive environment to teach and learn in and allows students to learn.  What can I do to include parents that is different or more inclusive than things I am already doing. It should be something that they can all access in whatever language they are comfortable with, at whatever time is best for them and it should have all of the information that they need or want. 

 When teaching it is so important that parents feel like they have a voice, like they are included, heard and appreciated. In his Ted Talk, Robinson talks about how No Child Left behind, ended up leaving millions behind. He argues that diversity is an important aspect for a child, both having it and embracing it. He also believes that schools can be successful when they are Highly personalized, have strong teacher support and tight links with the community. I am trying to create an environment that embraces the diverse population of my families while giving them the support they need to be a part of our community in a way that they are comfortable with the support needed to do so.This connection was something that I found to be difficult once we got back from distance learning this year. I had some parents on Class Dojo, others who only responded to emails and others who only responded to phone calls. I have tried to get everyone on the same page and into the apps that will allow them to connect in their home languages but it is easier said than done. Although many of the parents are part of  the younger generation, mid to late 20’s, I would not consider all of them digital natives. Boyd says that while they may know how to navigate their age appropriate platforms, they are not all knowing in the area of technology simply because of their age. While many of the parents have various forms of social media,there are multiple factors that come into play including their own access to different types of technology and  their individual ability. 

Listening to all of the ideas being thrown around in class,  I initially felt overwhelmed. I was not sure what to do, there were so many things that I could do. So many things that would help but what do I need, what speaks to me and my why. Someone mentioned using Google Sites and that it was helpful to them when making a classroom web page. This is when the idea of a class website was born.  So, I started to play around with it. I created a template and thought about all of the information that would be important for me to share, or that parents may deem important.  I still was not sold on the idea or my ability to carry it out, even after creating the skeleton for my web page. Then we had the opportunity to break out into small groups and discuss our ideas and our why’s. This is when I finally had to say it out loud to someone else, to make them understand my idea, my why and see if it was something worth trying. Well, both of my group members understood my point and thought it was a good idea. Having everything that a parent may need in one place.  I need to keep the parents' technical abilities in mind when making the site, nothing too fancy, clear cut and straight to the point. Use language that they can understand and visuals to support it. 

 I find that I walk the line between a techno-traditionalist and a techno-constructivist, I can hold my own in the tech world (specifically using Google products) and am pretty good at troubleshooting to solve problems, but there are times where it is just too much for me. That is when I call in the real experts, my sons! I use technology regularly, especially since the whole distance learning thing started and I can pick up on new tools rather easily, but I do need to be taught and having a model is very helpful. Once I understand it though, I really get into using it and all of the creativity that comes along with it. I truly enjoyed making Google slides for my students and creating interactive field trips for them to go on when we could not be together. Since I am familiar with many Google applications I decided that this would be the best platform for me. 

So, I decided to go back to creating my classroom webpage without any formal training. It is up to me to teach myself the ropes and use my resources as needed, clicking buttons and seeing what happens next. I started by adding my header and background. Next I played around with the layouts to see what each of them looked like when added to the page. I found a specific layout that included pictures and text and decided this was the one  for me.  I added a place for me to put a supplies list for the upcoming school year, pictures of students so that when we do activities I can put their pictures up for families to see, a place for important dates, a link to our Google Classroom in case we have any distance learning days, the parents know where to go.  I am planning to add a place with my contact information and a link to our Class Dojo so that they know where to reach me when they need me. Knowing my familys’ cultural backgrounds allowed me to use their home languages when labeling the different tabs to each of my links. I currently have each link labeled in English, Spanish and Portuguese using Google Translate . These are the three languages that are used within the families of my current students. If the need arises, I am able to go back and add more languages. After exploring and adding the basics I decided to dig a little deeper. So, I Googled how to create a Google Site for teachers. A video titled How to Create a Class Website for Teachers | Google Sites Tutorial came up,  so I skimmed it for new ideas. I am still working on putting those ideas into use, but it was nice to have the sources to dig a little deeper into this project. 

Before this class, I had the same technological skills, overall. I think the pandemic was the true turning point in that department, where I had to learn how to be a constructivist in order to engage and create with my students. What I did not have before was the ideas about when, why and how to use technology in the classroom. I did not think about the balancing act needed or about how although our students come from the age of technology, it is still important to directly teach them the skills the same way we teach other academic  skills. Most importantly I had never written down or talked about my why. I know that I had one before but it was not where I started when thinking about lessons and creating. It was just mine, not something to be shared.   This class has taught me that it should be more than just something that I think, it should guide everything that I do as a teacher, and it should grow and change as I do throughout my career. I started with the why, just like Simon Sinek talked about in his Ted Talk, and from the why, I built my Golden Circle.