Why so many teachers' websites stink

[NOTE TO READERS: I'm pursuing a master's degree in Educational Technology at JMU, and use this blog as part of my class requirement for journaling since I'm writing anyway. But occasionally we will have an assigned topic that doesn't directly relate to the Second Life project. Hope you enjoy it anyway.]

Estimates suggest there are more than 135 million websites in September 2007. Many of them are a waste of time to make and to read. The good news is that searching, sifting, and recommending have all improved in the last few years, but the bad news is that crappy websites keep getting made.

Webpagesthatsuck.com is fun to browse. Besides running an annual contest to determine the worst web pages that aren't supposed to be horrible, they also have a great list of the biggest mistakes in web design. Go read it. I'll wait here.

Welcome back. While you were gone, I was working on my new blog with jokes for French learners.

For me, the key thing about any web page is that "content is king." Graphics, comments, metadata; all the bells and whistles center around the content of the site and whether it's a) good and b) easy to find. With that in mind, teachers need to have a reason to create a website before they even open up iWeb. With a clear idea of what you're trying to convey, now it's time to choose the best way to convey it. A lot of times, you won't even have to make a website; just drop your information into some easy-to-use templates. Here are some suggestions:

If you're making a page of links to other websites, use portaportal or Protopage. They look nice and are oh so fast to set up.

If you're setting up a homework calendar, use Assign-A-Day or Google Calendar, which works nicely with other calendar programs by giving your calendar an RSS feed.

If you're trying to give your students and their parents more background information or extension activities on the topics you're teaching, start a blog on Blogger or Wordpress.

If you want a class wiki, check out wikispaces or pbwiki.

With all the templates out there for teachers to use, the only kinds of new websites created should have new, teacher-created materials like webquests (check out one I made here) or downloadable resources for students and teachers (here's an example from one of my classes).

I suppose it would also be alright to have a small website which included the links to your calendar, your blog, your wiki and so on, since they might change over time. Just remember to keep it updated!

By the way, though I speak confidently, I also speak with some hypocrisy on this topic. I haven't updated my school webpage for this year yet, and I have even left up a horrible, horrible old personal website on Geocities.

Oh, and one more thing. Never make a website with Microsoft Word. It's not like we can't tell.