Pros and Cons of Teacher Websites - Research Paper Example

Running Head: room Websites room Websites [Institute’s room Websites With every field in the world facing rapidadvancement due to the development of technology, education is one of the fields reaping most benefit. This field has seen development due to the several tools available for a student as well as a teacher, due to technology. One of the most important tools is the internet, which has been aiding the learning process through multiple ways. One important way which it has been aiding this process is by connecting the student and the teacher though several mediums other than just the classroom.

A classroom website is one such example. This is an online interactive website set up by the teacher, through which the teacher connects with the student and his or her parents, and shares notes, syllabi, and other information, which either of these parties may require. Classroom websites have been recognized for their simple yet valuable contribution to the educational world, but not without a fair share of negative points. Either way, the users of this tool should evaluate whether these flaws outweigh the contribution that it makes to learning.

The main function of a classroom website is to serve as an additional and convenient method for the teachers to share information with their students. From this, spring the many advantages of having a classroom website. The fact that it is a technology-based tool, however, has certain disadvantages. One large advantage of this is that teachers can always leave notes as reminders for the student on this website. The notes can be pertaining to any important matter discussed in class, which the teacher does not want the students to forget.

This especially includes things like homework, announcements, and class rules. A student who cannot recall the homework assigned for a subject can simply log on to the website to see the reminder that the teacher left for the students. This however, requires the teacher to update the website after every single lesson (Greenspan, 2002). This can be a time-consuming activity, especially for teachers who have multiple classes to manage. Apart from this, the teacher may also use this website to make announcements and share news.

This includes announcements such as informing the class of an upcoming fieldtrip or the cancellation of a class. The need for such announcements usually arises after class stands dismisses. Thus, if the teacher posts such announcements online, this saves the teacher the trouble of having to inform the students through other, lengthier means, and it also ensures that the news is displayed somewhere all students are likely to check. There is however, a drawback to this method of sharing as well.

If a student does not have access to internet at his or her home, or if the teacher does not have internet when the news is to be shared, the announcement will be delayed and may not reach the students in time. Such a delay may also be caused by technical difficulties, which are again inevitable and cannot always be fixed without the help of a computer technician (Sharma, 2007). For this reason, it can sometimes become impractical for teachers to use classroom websites to share such news. Furthermore, one upcoming and very popular use of classroom websites is for teachers to share class notes, in the forms of files and sometimes in the form of instructional videos.

These notes often serve the purpose of self-study notes for students who wish to revise the lecture that they get in class. This is a popular use of classroom websites even used by universities, who post videos as well as presentation slides of lectures on their websites for the students. This is a useful technique for students to have access to any lecture notes for classes they may have missed, and for those wishing to revise what they learned earlier in class (Kaplan-Leiserson, 2006). The problem with this use is that the teacher needs to have a certain level of technological skills to be able to make slides and videos, which they can make and upload for their students.

If they lack such skills, they cannot use these websites for such purpose, thus greatly reducing the usefulness of the website for them (Simon, 2001). In addition, classroom websites can serve as a medium for interaction between the teacher and the parents of the students. This applies to the case of young students, whose parents may wish to keep in contact with the teachers and keep track of the syllabus being taught to students. For this, the classroom website can have a section for parents, creating an online interactive community.

Lastly, it is a speedy and convenient way to communicate with students and their parents. Finally, being a virtual set up, it does not require much capital resources to set up, other than an online connection. For all these reasons, it is safe to say that the benefits of classroom websites outweigh the disadvantages, thus making it a useful tool for classroom learning. References Greenspan, R. (2002). Classroom Websites Can Unify and Divide. The Montana Associated Technology Roundtables. Kaplan-Leiserson, E. (2006). Podcasting in Academic and Corporate Learning. ASTD.org.

Sharma, P. (2007). Blended learning: using technology in and beyond the language classroom. Macmillan English. Simon, E. J. (2001).Technology Instead of a Textbook Alternatives for the Introductory Biology Classroom. BioOne.