Classroom Practice. Student Web Pages — A Performance Assessment They'll Love!

Abstract

It took only a week for Ms. Havens' second-graders to learn how to create their own pages. The benefits proved to be tremendous: excited students and parents and a new way to assess student learning. WHEN THE teachers at my primary school were told a few years ago that all of us must have a classroom page, instant panic ensued. No one even knew where to start. But after several workshops, some hours of experimentation, and considerable help from our computer specialist, each of us had a simple classroom page posted the school site. Then, as we learned more, many of us wanted to try new things and make the pages more elaborate. Most of us found that we were spending hours of our normal planning time this endeavor. To justify this expenditure of time, I decided to make design a part of my teaching repertoire. Virtually all of our students have been exposed to computers for most of their young lives. Picking up new computer skills comes quite easily to them. It occurred to me that if I, a technological neophyte, could learn to make a page, then my students could do so, too. I asked our computer specialist what he thought of the prospect, and he was willing to give it a try. For a week, my students and I spent 45 minutes a day computer sessions. To my absolute delight, by Friday each of my second-graders had a simple page ready for editing and posting our classroom site. The children were so excited at the prospect of having their own pages posted for everyone to see on the Net. Our success depended simplicity. Each page had the student's title of choice (e.g., Erica's Fantastic Page!!), a drawing, and some facts about ladybugs - a subject we had been studying in conjunction with our unit change. The program we used was Microsoft FrontPage, but the same result can be achieved with most page authoring programs. First, the children learned how to make a table with three cells and how to select the colors for the page and the cell borders. The top cell contained the title and a watercolor self-portrait. (I took pictures of these watercolors with a digital camera so that they could be transferred to each student's page.) This idea not only avoids the issue of posting a student's picture the but also adds a touch of individuality and self-expression. The second cell exhibited a scientific illustration that enhanced the text below it (a concept that we had also been addressing in discussions about nonfiction literature). Finally, the third cell was absolutely filled with everything the student knew about ladybugs. This information came from books we read in class, from class discussions, from books students checked out of the library, and from magazine articles and videos about the life cycles of insects. The children also made use of such previously acquired skills as computer drawing and word processing to complete the task. And of course, they always enjoyed adding their own personal design touches with font styles and colors. They used Microsoft Word and Paint for these purposes. Having completed the individual pages, our next step was to post them to our classroom page. To do this, I created a Portraits Page, which featured a digital picture of each student. Then each student made a folder that contained his or her personal page, self- portrait, and drawing. In computer class, our specialist helped the children deposit their personal folders into a folder that I could add to the classroom folder. Finally, I linked each page to each student's picture, as well as to the words Web Page. This part of the process is tedious and time consuming for the teacher, but it is worth the effort. …