Education Websites: Teaching beyond the classroom.
Class Blogs:
http://technoenglish.blogspot.com/
An example of a simple, easy to use discussion platform for any classroom, this Blogspot website provides an excellent model of how to hold online discussion with an extremly user friendly platform.
This presentation provides easy to follow instructions for setting up a class blog on another simple platform, Wordpress.
Both Wordpress and Blogspot are free and well supported, easy to customize and capable of professional level self publishing as well as easily moderated online discussion, homework reminders, and community outreach that is available beyond the confines of the university. They both offer an obvious advantage to the subscription based modules such as E-Learning or DesiretoLearn in that they can easily be made available to users free of charge.
Teaching Websites:
Far from simply being a way to display a portfolio, a functional teaching website can create a functional platform for resources and classroom activities. Free services like Weebly allow for simple and speedy website creation with some impressive customization options. Here are just a few examples of teaching websites made by WMU's Future Teachers.
Wikis:
These collaborative projects allow a wealth of information to be brought together, refined, and revised by numerous people and compiled into viable resources.
Wikispaces.com offers advertising free Wiki hosting for K-12 education and allows simple editing and collaboration infrastructure, making it an ideal host for not only teaching websites, but class-wide projects and beyond.
An example of a collaborative Wiki resource.
A Wiki created to help users use digital resouces. Included here by permission of Christine E. Strayer.