Susan+Chrobak-Swansea




 * September 14, 2010**- We set up our Professional Learning Community today. We'll be designing our schools' websites and supporting teachers in using that website. There are 8 of us in the group. We'll meet in October to discuss what our school website looks like now, the research we'll do on other school's websites and how we want our schools' websites to look.

I am the technology teacher and STR at Swansea Elementary. We do not have a school website that anyone has worked on in nearly 10 years. This is embarrassing! Last year I created a wiki to post some of my students' work. My 4th and 5th graders wrote stories about fall and made podcasts with them. Then, a 5th grade teacher created a page for her class. She posted videos of her students talking about creating a musical instrument. These wiki pages should be linked to our school website and this is the year I learn how to do this!

I found a link to an old website that my school had way back about 12 years ago. Now, I just have to figure out how to get it on this wiki!
 * September 21, 2010**

@http://www.dpsk12.org/schools/Elementary/Swansea/swansea.html

yeah! I did it! We are now called the Swansea Stallions! I wonder who changed that and when that happened? I'm seeing that there are so many options for school websites out there it's mind boggling. I'm going to create a spreadsheet to keep it all organized. I'll come back here when it's done.

Good job!! I am editing our site using a Microsoft Expressions Web Design Program--can be frustrating. Pat


 * October 1, 2010**

I have some relatives who teach in Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut so I thought I would look at their website. They have one real interesting feature. You can select the language the website is written in from at least 20 or so in the list. Just click on the language you want and presto! the whole website is in that language. Here is the link:

http://portal.norwalkps.org/default.aspx


 * October 19, 2010**

I've been looking at several school websites. I made a table of the features of school websites. It is attached.


 * January 20, 2011**

Well, I don't know how I lost my page content in the first place but I just spent about a half hour working with wikispaces support and I got my page back.

I've spent the last two months gathering information to put on my new school website. I've asked teachers to write a short biography. I've been copying and pasting these to the website. I also have asked our cafeteria staff to forward a copy of the menus to me each month via email.

What I would like to do next is have a work group some evening input more info into the wiki. I need people to write about the various programs we offer. It seems like it will take me too long to input all this info into the wiki. I really need help.

I also want to add some pictures to our school website but I'm going to have to go out and take the pictures first. I wonder if I should include a picture of each teacher on the biography page???

January 21, 2011
Well, meeting on Skype left a little be to be desired. Basically, we learned more about how to use Skpye. We also shared a little about what we are all doing. However, I don't know how that helps me get my work done on my school's website.


 * February 14, 2011**

Here is the link to my school's website. It needs so much work. I just can't find the time to work on it. I'm trying to balance 3 jobs and there's only so many hours in the day. Looking forward to working on the site during the ILT workshop.

http://swansea.wikispaces.com/


 * February 15, 2011**

It looks like the above link doesn't work. Don't know what I did wrong. I'll try again now. Swansea Website

I added the link as an internal link first. That's why it didn't work. I clicked external link and was able to figure it out.

Michael Lund and I sat down and worked together for about a half hour this evening. We divvied up some of the work and made a plan for the next week. He's going to get his hands on our mission and vision statement to post on the website. He's also going to finish the bios of the teachers who didn't turn theirs in. I'm going to speak with the cafeteria lady to see if she'll manage a page for our website. She can add menus and photos of food. I'm going to contact people who are in charge of our various programs and see if they will write a short paragraph about what they offer. (RTI, Summer Scholars, girl scouts, etc..)

**February 16, 2011**
Today, I made a list of things to do for the website. It's quite extensive. Still think I need a work session with several people to help. Here's my list, so far:
 * 1) Add Stallion to home page. Capitalize Swansea and add Elementary
 * 2) Finish adding staff bios.
 * 3) Talk to cafeteria manager about working on the cafeteria page.
 * 4) Add links for students resources page
 * 5) Ask for help in writing the paragraphs about our programs.
 * 6) Post notices that go home on the newsletter page.
 * 7) Post parent brochure that is handed out at registration time.
 * 8) Post SAR on home page.
 * 9) Post school supply lists.
 * 10) Write history of Swansea and add old picture of school to that page.
 * 11) Take picture for website.
 * 12) Link my website to DPS.
 * 13) Add a calendar to the home page.

When exactly am I suppose to do all this????? I am overwhelmed.

Well, I've added the stallions to the home page. And, I capitalized Swansea and added Elementary. I've worked on the staff bios some but they still aren't finished. I talked to the cafeteria lady. I need to send her an invitation to join the wiki so she can add the menus. I'll also send an invitation to the new family liasion. She just sent out a newsletter. I'll ask her to upload it to the wiki. I posted a SAR on the home page but it's an old one. I need to update that as well as the phone number of the school. I've also spoken with a few teachers about creating a wiki to link to our school website. This is part of my SGOs. I responded to an ad in the Lakewood newspaper this morning. A class at Red Rocks Community College is looking for projects that need to be completed, like websites. I'm hoping I can get some help. At any rate, I think it's time to link the new site to the DPS page. I'll send in a hotline request for that.
 * March 6, 2011**

Well, now that the website for my school has been created, my position here has been cut. I suppose I need to take out my autobiography from the site**.** But, I'd like to get some credit for setting it up. Would it be weird for me to put a paragraph about the creator in fine print somewhere?
 * March 8, 2011**

Red Rocks Community College has not called me back yet. I went an bought batteries for the school camera so I could take some pictures to put on the website. That's my next focus.

I've invited several teachers to the new wiki because I won't be at Swansea next year. I took my biography off the staff page and made a page called 'about the creator'. I thought I should get some credit for doing all this. My next step is to train the 11 teachers on how to make a wiki of their own. Then, I can link that to the Swansea site, right?
 * March 12, 2011**

I noticed that my school web page had a 'discussions' tab at the top. This wiki does not. Do I want a discussions tab? The only other theme that doesn't have one is the one we're using here. I don't want to use this one for my school. It appears you can edit the themes but when I try to do that a bunch of computer language comes up that I don't know what to do with. Do any of you know about that? Maybe I'll ask the DOTS hotline.

March 25, 2011
I've started blogging with my students and I'm pretty excited about it. During a 40 minute period my 4th graders posted 62 comments on my blog about Chris Van Allsburg's book, The Stranger. I'm using the blogging tool to teach Accountable Talk.