iWeb: About Me - homepage site

800 websites (more than 250 new ones!)
This fall we rolled out a new activity. Students are making websites about themselves (About Me) using iWeb. The websites are only visible on our District intranet. Two reasons for this: since student websites are behind the firewall, we keep them safe and we keep the Internet free from their data (in case a student decides to publish content that isn't correct or truthful). I teach two lessons to help make this happen: an iWeb intro followed by a class period when students learn how to publish. In between those two days, teachers provide time for students to finish their About Me homepage.

When I work with students on the first day, I like to talk a little about what one should share online these days. This is especially important for our 8th graders who may have a Facebook page or will probably have one soon. (FYI - In order to be eligible to sign up for Facebook, users must be thirteen (13) years of age or older.) Students' About Me pages are a little like Facebook, and it provides a nice starting point for these discussions. Teachers are welcome to carry on the dialog when I'm not there.

The brief writing activity on the About Me page is aligned with ELA curriculum goals. In addition to ELA goals, students start learning how to link to their other iWeb projects and eventually to other students's sites. This accomplishes quite a few technology goals. One of these goals is described by Alan November as the Grammar of the Internet. Click the link to learn more, or check out the article at techLEARNING: WEB LITERACY and Critical Thinking: A Teacher's Tool Kit.

So far, we've only had a few publishing lessons. It's fun helping kids understand that they have a website after they learn how to publish. Students' excitement about their website jumps significantly when they begin to study the URL of their own site and begin to discover their friends' sites. That's the application of the Grammar of the Internet.

Remember when I said earlier that the websites are only visible at school? Well, there's more to that comment… students sites are protected by the firewall, but students can copy their Site folder to a flash drive - which they can take home to show Mom and Dad. How cool is that!