Class Sites and Digital Intensive Session Seven

We have been discussing class sites and what makes a 'great site'. The class site within Manaiakalani and outreach schools is used for students to assess their learning. In today's digital classroom it is extremely important that learning is visible, accessible and rewindable. As a group, we came up with key ideas that we believe make a great site not only for students but whanau and other teachers within the community.

What makes a great site?

Visual	User Experience
Exciting Engaging Using space effectively Keep it looking basic, not busy Following conventional layout rules e.g. white spaces Commonality- Reading/Writing/Maths Themed	Logical Interconnected pages Engaging (resources) Learning is easy to find Main elements are obvious- landing page has important info Consistency Visibility

After reflecting on my class site, I can see some improvements that I could make now and for my class site next year.  Ensuring that I use individual drawings would mean that each click would not result in a new page opening. ( This is a problem at the moment, as students end up with 5-8 pages open as they navigate through the website to find their learning). I believe that I have created an easy to use, class site that allows all my learners to access their learning and understand what is expected this has been done through consistency, pictures to help lower learners and logical placement of pages/ learning. This term my goal was around rewindable learning and using digital modeling books. Below is an example of my student's task aligned with the modeling book giving them examples of how to complete the task if they get stuck. My Maths and Reading modeling books I find are effective and helpful; My writing page will be my focus next term as I find it hard to layout the learning/ tasks on the page. My writing program has fluid groups so it needs to sit on one page for all students to access (sometimes they have similar tasks, other times there will be 3-4 groups running who have different learning intentions: I find that hard to show online in a way that makes sense for me and my students).