A site that is really easy to use that I found in trying to find free hosting sites for out PTO is Teacher Web at www.teacherweb.com
. I thought MySchoolOnline.com was harder to use especially if you have no experience in putting together a website. Like those books, windows for dummies, this site is as easy as it gets. Wonderful site for teachers. You can also view other teachers sites. Check it out, I think you will like it.
Sherry
After reviewing the web based solutions & listening to the teacher parent feedback I think the easiest solution to implement would be based on a voicemail platform....
Thanks Susieq04 and PLW. I am in the process of checking out the sites that you mentioned.
I also found good stuff at www.aolatschool.com
. They have links to myschoolonline.com for schools that want to setup websites. They use www.thinkwave.com
for hosting homework, grades, etc.
AOL@School supplies software that is loaded onto the client workstations at school and provides many of the same 'parental' type controls that aol home users have. The schools have a different home page (portal) that can also be accessed at home. I'll know more once I get the software and load it up.
Our middle school teachers use www.teacherreports.com
Not all of the teachers use it but more and more are because parents love it. It is not easy to start up each year but once you have your class info in it is just a matter of updating it. You can view classes, assignments, grades, complete and incomplete assingments and email to the teachers and receive messages from the teachers. I love it. The middle school in a neighboring city requires all their teachers to do it. It has to be a pain for the staff but and sometimes not updated as quickly as we would like but it is a priceless tool. If they really want us parents to be involved in our students education this is the ticket. We are empowered by the information provided to be able to see a missing assingment and confront our kids as to why it was not turned in. Or see that yes there is a big project due in two weeks, so you are not running to the store at 9:45 pm for poster board. Sorry to go on so long but as you can see I love it.
I was recently asked by our school administration to look into what it would take to post each classes daily homework assignments (the assignment - not the student's completed work) on the web. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions or could point me towards some kind of a service (preferably free) that is easy for teachers and students to use. I looked at blackboard.com and bigchalk.com but both are subscription services. I also looked at a PTO site mentioned in one of the lead articles on this site (www.toquampto.org/
) where teachers post their assignments on a phone system and students dial in and access their teacher's recorded assignment via their class 'code'. This might be easier for non-tech savy students & parents although it might be more costly ($$ for the computer/phone/VRU hosting system).
