I'm currently teaching 5th grade summer school and was allowed to try a 4th and 5th grade Web Design Elective and it has been AWESOME! I personally believe that designing Web Pages will soon be just as important, if not more important than being able to format a research paper in APA or MLA format. In this post, I will outline the process I followed throughout the class as well as a few changes I'll make if I get to do this again. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or contact me via email! |
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The Tools We Used
Kahn Academy is an awesome resource for any teacher! They cover all sorts of topics from basic math, to college algebra, economics and coding! I set up a class in Kahn Academy and had all of my students work through the "Hour of Webpages" lessons. These were simple lessons related to the basics of HTML. | Weebly is an incredibly easy tool to use for creating websites. I actually use Weebly for my personal site and I'm planning to use it next year for my 5th graders to make online portfolios. You can see some examples of websites by visiting this Tackk: WH Web Design |
Our Process
1) What is the internet?
We started out learning about the internet and how web browsers access websites that are stored on servers. We watched a BrainPOP on the internet and a video on Kahn Academy to help us gain understanding.
2) Website Observations
After students gained a basic understanding of the internet and how it works, we began analyzing websites and looked for some common elements. We noticed that almost every website has a header/logo that links back to the home page. We also noticed the navigation bars on all websites and how they are usually on the top of the left side of websites. Our observations continued, but you get the idea.
3) What are websites made of?
In just about any web browser, you can view the source code, which is what makes a website. I opened the source code of a few websites and helped the students identify a few key tags ( <html>; <head>; <body>; etc..) I taught the students what some of these basic elements were before they got onto Kahn Academy. I thought that having some basic understanding of HTML would help them be more successful.
4) Kahn Academy
Kahn Academy made it SO easy to teach HTML! In fact, they taught the majority of the work, and I supported students as they hit parts that were tricky. I used the "Hour of Webpages" lessons, but they also have lessons on more advanced HTML and CSS. As students learned different HTML tags, we added them to a running list on the board. Once students finished the Hour of Webpages and had a basic understanding of HTML, they were allowed to begin creating their sites on Weebly.
5) Weebly
As I explained above, we used Weebly Education to create our websites. Similar to Wix and a few other tools, Weebly is primarily a "drag and drop" interface. It is very easy to create new pages and insert different types of media.
Student Work Samples
The websites created by my summer class will only be available through the middle of July 2015. I'll need to make those student licenses available for my incoming 5th graders.
You can see their samples here: tackk.com/whwebdesign
You can see their samples here: tackk.com/whwebdesign