What features should a good classroom website include? If you’re a teacher trying to set up a classroom website, consider the following five scenarios:
- A student is home and wants to know when the next test, quiz, or due date is. .
- A student or parent wants details about an upcoming field trip.
- You want to show off your students’ science projects or art exhibits.
- You want to publish a daily lesson plan or class schedule (especially helpful for students who were absent that day).
- You want to poll your students for an important class decision.
You may be thinking: “That sounds great, but how do I create a website and how much will it cost?” Let’s find out!
Create a Free Classroom Website
If you use WordPress.com, setting up a classroom website can be completely free. To sweeten the deal, there’s no complicated setup process and you don’t have to know anything about coding.
1. Choose a domain name
WordPress.com guides you through the setup process, step-by-step. First, choose a domain name for your website. For example, “Judy’s Classroom.” As you can see below, WordPress.com gives you multiple domain name options depending on which name you want.
WordPress.com handles the hosting for you, so you’ll get a domain extension (such as judysclassroom.wordpress.com) if you choose to continue building your site with a free WordPress.com plan. Paid options are also available if you want your own domain name, need more storage space, or want to implement plugins.
2. Pick a Theme
WordPress.com offers hundreds of beautifully designed free and premium themes (including responsive and mobile-friendly) for you to choose from. Just select one that suits your needs.
3. Create Pages and Posts
On your website, pages contain static (unchanging) content that people can refer to to find specific information. You can link your pages to your navigation menu so people can find them more easily.
Examples of pages you might want to include:
- An “About” page, where visitors can learn more about you and your website.
- An “Upcoming Events” page, where students and parents can learn about important deadlines, test dates, field trips, and more. With WordPress.com, you can embed a Google calendar on your website so students and their families always receive the most up-to-date academic calendar for their class.
Posts, on the other hand, are dynamic content entries (displayed from newest to oldest). You can organize your posts using categories directly from the WordPress Editor. For example, you might have a category called “Daily Summary” where students can read a summary of what was covered in class and what homework was assigned on a particular day.
You can also add media (such as video and photo resources for your students) to pages and posts.
4. Get Your Students Involved
Be creative so your students don’t feel like your class website is a one-way line of communication. For example, you can add polls to collect student feedback or hold a vote on the theme of an end-of-year party.
In addition, come up with incentives to encourage your students to interact with your website. You can award them five bonus points in a quiz for participating in activities like answering another student’s question in the comment section of a post.
You can also train your students to write “guest” blog posts. “in his class. adding them as contributors or authors.
A classroom website enriches students
A Nielsen study found that 45 percent of American children between the ages of 10 and 12 years own a smartphone with a service plan. In addition to being free and easy, creating your own classroom website takes advantage of that technology in a positive way. You can also improve your efficiency in the classroom while increasing student engagement at home.
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