Classroom Ideas
Whether you’re a veteran teacher with a class website from 1999 or a new teacher fresh to the career, it might be time to design a new teaching website. If your class website is non-existent or needs a serious makeover, here are 10 steps you can take to design a new one that meets your teaching goals.
Step 1: Choose your website building platform and make an account.
Weebly, WordPress, and Squarespace all offer simple, easy-to-use templates. If you’re not sure which to use, you can follow along with the simple steps in this article on a Weebly account.
Note: Weebly autosaves your work, so there’s no need to click the “Publish” button before you’re ready. To access an unfinished site, simply log back in to Weebly.
Step 2: Select a theme or layout that meets your teaching website goals.
Preview theme choices to get an idea of how the layout is generally used and organized. Consider class content and student-friendly organization and aesthetics in your choice.
Step 3: Choose your website domain and name it.
To make a free website, make sure to use a subdomain of the site you’re using. Then, test relevant names for your site in the box given until the domain is available. Click “Continue” when you’re ready to start editing your chosen template.
Step 4: Create quick access tabs for your site.
To edit the tab titles for your web pages, click “Pages” and select the tab title you would like to edit. To add a tab, click the “+” sign. If you want to keep the formatting from part of the template when you add a tab, go into the tab you want to copy and click “copy”. I highly recommend including tabs for a class calendar, a parent page, and a resources page.
Step 5: Build your home page.
To edit the template, click on the part you want to edit. Use Pexels to find free stock photos that make your website pop.
Edit the text on the screen to fit your class. Include a class title, description, and goal.
Step 6: Create a calendar page.
Click on the “Class Calendar” tab you created earlier. Click and drag the “Embed” box from your building tools into the body of the page. Then, go to your Google calendar settings to find the embed code for the calendar. Copy and paste the embed code in the embed box on your site. To watch this process in action, see this video.
Step 7: Customize your Parents and Resources pages.
A Parent page on your teaching website can ease your workload tremendously in the long run, as you can post a copy of the syllabus, your preferred contact method, office hours, and answers to frequently asked questions.
Having a Resources page is also a great step, as it can provide students and their families with make up work, class recordings, extension opportunities, and more.
It’s up to you how you want to format each of these pages. To build them, make sure you’ve clicked on the “Build” tab at the top of your screen. This provides you with building blocks that you can click and drag anywhere on your screen, including titles, text boxes, images, and more.
Experiment with your building blocks, be flexible, and have fun!
Step 8: Add Bitmojis.
This is simple and easy if you already have the Bitmoji keyboard on your device.
Simply click the keyboard icon, right-click (or two-finger tap) your Bitmoji of choice, and save your Bitmoji sticker to your device.
Then, click and drag an image-building block to the place where you want the sticker to go. Click “upload,” select the sticker file, and resize by clicking and dragging the corner of the icon.
Step 9: Publish!
When you’re satisfied with your site, click the blue “Publish” button in the upper righthand corner. This makes your website accessible to be viewed online. You will still be able to edit your site after it is published. To make your edits visible, simply click the blue button again once edits are made.
Step 10: Add internal links to the site.
This enables users to navigate easily between the homepage and other pages. To do this, go to the page you would like to link and copy the url from the search bar.
Then, go back into build mode and highlight the text you would like to connect to the link. Click the link symbol and paste the url into the space given.
Use the link feature for each important page on your site. You can also use this feature to add files, email links, and more!
Want to see how this class website turned out? Click here to visit and explore the site designed for this tutorial!
