Sunday, September 16, 2012

Classroom Monitoring Portal


I recently created a classroom monitoring portal, (CMP,) using Netvibes for the fifth grade teachers in one of our elementary schools.  You can find it here.

This CMP has a different focus than a typical CMP might have in that it is designed so parents can access information related to  student/teacher work and expectations in fifth grade.
Parents were struggling with having to visit so many different pages to access classroom information pertaining to each of the fifth grade teachers.  Since each student travels to each of the teachers for a specific content area, parents were having to go to three different websites and more for this information.  It was too difficult for parents.  Solution - a parent CMP.

This CMP houses individual tabs for the following:
1.  Each teacher's google calendar
2.  A portal for teachers to enter frequently visited websites
3.  A link to classroom wikis
4.  All student blogs
5.  Class list of blogs
6.  News Feed
The google calendar tab allows for the parent to view the classwork and homework related to each teacher on one page yet allows for each teacher to maintain an independent google calendar.  Keep in mind the process of learning for many teachers.  That's why you won't see much on their calendars.  They've just learned about them, love the idea, but haven't used them yet.  Things will change in the next week or two.
I have not included feeds for wiki edits/discussions to teacher wikis on this CMP because it is not relevant to the parent and it would confuse them.  If I wanted to put a feed in for wiki edits I would do so exactly the way I entered in student blog feeds only I would select the wiki edit or discussion feed for that page.
Teachers have not had a lesson in how to edit the portal to add in their favorite links other than the science teacher.  It's part of the process.
I did throw in a tab for news but will take that out eventually.  I may choose to put in some feeds relevant to parents related to our district in the future.
This page is a public netvibes feed.  I struggled a bit learning about how to move a tab from a private dashboard to a public dashboard.  I ended up sharing the link of the tab via an email to myself and then adding it to my public page that way.  I could not figure out how to do this in the manage dashboards section of Netvibes.  If any of you know how, I'd appreciate the feedback.
Lastly, if this post finds any fifth grade classroom teachers who are interested in sharing blogs with each other, please contact me.
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