Background

The development of a website, regardless of the project scale, can evoke a host of emotions as the designer, developer, and most likely the person utilizing the site, especially for classroom purposes. Besides determining the overall goals for the site and the layout and feel, there are the technical considerations of design, overall genre or feel, usability aspects, sources to host, and assisting in the design process (well, maybe not if you're a coding guru). While the design and accessibility to all users are key factors, we also need to determine an overall goal and audience for our website. These key factors can help to guide the process and help with the overall construction process, which could be a bit like going down a rabbit hole if not framed around learning objectives. 

In this module, your goals are to just get a taste of design using a web-based program. The benefit of using a simple drag-and-drop program is that you don't have to be a coding expert or a design expert to be successful. These companies have taken a very complex process that involves coding, hexadecimal, etc., and made it into a world of templates. If you are a purest in development, this might drive you crazy. But for most teachers, the ease of dragging and dropping with pre-made templates is a huge relief. Do I personally love to design and use more complex programs? Certainly! Do I have the time and the most cutting-edge training regarding web design? No. That's why, at least experimenting in this realm of well-designed and put-together templates and web-based design apps is a nice avenue to give you a taste of what's out there and what's possible. 

As a PK-12 teacher, I firmly maintain that you don't need to be a web designer or a tech guru to have a very useful classroom website. With that being said, there is a bit of basic knowledge, but with the modern advances in design, they practically choose everything for you (color, layout, background, etc.), and it's up to you to "fill in the blanks." As Burrough (2017) cites in their article, teachers can use all the technology that they want, but if they are not engaging students in the areas of problem-solving, creativity, higher-order thinking, etc., then the use of any tool is not going to have substantial effects on learning outcomes. It's a balance, and it's about trying new tools, trying new methods and instructional strategies, being willing to fail, admitting this failure to your students, gaining feedback, and coming back with something that works for your learners. 

The creation of a website demonstrates the integration of several ISTE Educator standards (2024). ISTE Standards for Educators defines an area as a Designer (Competency area 2.5) states that "Educators design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability." ISTE 2.5.c states that educators should "Explore and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments that engage and support learning." It states that teachers engage students in solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources. ISTE Standards for Educators highlights the competency area of the Facilitator, and it focuses on the educator as a leader who fosters the use of, manages the use, and models the creative expressions of utilizing tech tools (ISTE, 2.6. a.-c., 2024). The creation of the website teaches digital literacy in that it shows that one can use technology to create a website that enables users to organize and access information that originally comes from a variety of sources, making it easier to find and use that information based on the goals of the site.

References

Burrough, A. (2017). Q&A: Education Technology Expert On Teaching the Next Generation of Teachers. EdTech Magazine. https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2017/02/qa-education-technology-expert-teaching-next-generation-teachers
International Society for Technology and Education. (2024). ISTE Standards: Educator. ISTE. http://www.iste.org/standards/standards