Kentucky Academy of Technology Education

Instructional Web Pages

Instructional Illuminations

Creating your own Instructional Web Page is a great way to integrate the World Wide Web into your lesson delivery. It also can be an incredible tool for extending your classroom outside of the traditional concept of what a classroom is. By creating instructional web pages you can provide extra learning materials to reinforce or enhance a lesson with real world information. provide up-to-date information for learning.

provide extra help for students when they are away from the classroom.

increase motivation for certain skill development tasks.

focused materials that allow for a more efficient learning environment.

encourage creativity for students and staff.

provide parents with information about what their children are learning and allow for more interaction from parents in their child's education.

Where Do I Start?

PLAN

The very first thing you should do is plan. Develop an outline or some other idea of what you want to deliver via your web page. Do this on paper or a word processor and revise it until you are certain that you have plan that you can handle. Keep it focused and always keep in mind that your time is limited. If you try and do more than you have time for you will end up with outdated materials that won't serve your visitors in an effective manner.

A sample outline might look like this:

Students

Lesson Materials

Homework Help

Exceptional Work

Parents

Current Events

Calendar

Of course yours may look completely different than this depending on your target audience. Basically this outline will determine your file structure and what pages you will have to create and, most importantly, it will act as a guide for the creation of the materials you will provide.

You should also decide where you will house your web pages. The very best place for instructional web pages to be housed is on your school's web server. Providing web space for teachers is neither a daunting task nor expensive so districts should have little trouble in providing the space needed for your web site. If the school will not provide the space you will need to look into places that provide web hosting services.

RESEARCH

Get on the Internet and look around for ideas of what you want to provide. While doing this keep an eye open for useful resources to which you can link. This will save you from having to take the time to design when you can simply link to an effective site.

DESIGN

This can be the hardest part but it doesn't have to be. There are plenty of software programs out there that can make the design process rather easy. Which one do you use? It depends on your budget, your school's existing technology and your knowledge of technology.

Some people prefer to actually write the code themselves. HTML code is rather straightforward and can be learned rather quickly. Writing code also gives you great flexibility and control over the look of your web pages. Writing HTML code can also be time intensive and leave you with a less than aesthetically pleasing layout.

Education World provides a pretty good list of some of the software that is available for the creation of web materials. This is by no means a complete list. BEFORE YOU BUY be sure and check to see if your school already provides software that can be used to create web pages. I will say that you should avoid using word processors or publishing software (used to make flyers and advertisements) for designing web pages if it is at all possible.

Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens

Core Connections

Education for citizenship in a constitutional democracy has been a long-standing goal of schools in the United States. To achieve this goal, students must learn their civil rights and responsibilities in a free society. This ERIC Digest discusses (1) the importance of teaching about the responsibilities of citizenship, (2) deficiencies in learning about responsible citizenship, (3) how to improve learning about responsible citizenship at home, (4) how to improve learning about responsible citizenship at school, and (5) where to obtain information and materials about how to teach responsible citizenship.

Technology in the Business Classroom

Instructional Illuminations

Technology can improve student learning not only in the general education classroom, but also in the Business education classroom. Two types of technology that are effective in the classroom are SMART technology and the use of a desktop computer. SMART technology allows you to have interactive lessons which engage the students in a fun and interesting ways. It includes galleries, templates, as well as a notebook feature. Each of these can be incorporated to enhance the quality and effectiveness of daily lessons.

Desktop computers can also be used in the Business classroom to help students acquire skills that will be beneficial in the business world. There are many tools that can be used on the desktop computer including: the Internet, word processing, spreadsheet, database, web editor, email, publishing, and presentation software. One of the many benefits of the Internet is the vast array of products and resources available to educators such as the Intel Innovation in Education website. This website allows teachers to facilitate the development of higher-order thinking skills through its Thinking Tools.