Summer is here, and for may educators, it's a time to take a step back, relax and take a deep breath.  For many teachers, it's also a time to start thinking about next year and ways that you can improve the classroom experience for both your students and yourself.  One way to do this is to build a teacher website.  EZClassSites.com offers teachers free teacher websites that include both static and interactive tools that allow the students to get involved in the classroom website.  We currently offer teachers an interactive classroom calendar, discussion boards, teacher and student blogging, homework posting, an extensive gradebook, photo galleries, webquest, and much, much more!

Most teachers, when weighing the pros and cons of building a teacher website, they will start with the question, "How will this help my students?"  A classroom website is a time investment, and time is a precious commodity for any teacher.  So, why should you take the time to build and maintain a classroom website?

Perhaps the best way to answer this question is with a few questions of our own.

• Would you like your students to have quick and easy access to information about homework, exams, and projects?
• Do you think that you could save time and money by having a place that you could save classroom handouts online, so that both parents and students could access the information anytime and from anywhere?
• Do you think that providing your students with an online forum to discuss and share information with both you and their classmates could enrich their learning experience and help foster your classroom community?
• Do you want to increase the use of technology in your classroom?
• Do your students constantly say that they forgot their homework?
• Do you think that timely reminders regarding homework assignment, upcoming events, projects, etc. would benefit both your students and their parents?

There are just a few of the possible questions you could ask yourself, but if you answered yes to any of the above, then you and your student's could benefit a FREE teacher website from EZClassSites.com!

Regards,

EZClassSites.com - Support

In preparation of the launch of our new district web hosting solution, we are proud to announce another new feature that is also available to anybody using one of our free teacher websites!  Now, students are able to save their work prior to submitting it to you for approval.  With this new feature, students are allowed more time to complete their assignments, can complete assignments over multiple sessions, and much more!

Along with this update, we have also updated the student navigation bar and the links that they can use to access their information from your classroom website.  Now, when students log into your classroom website, they will only see one link on the left navigation bar titled "Student Maintenance Page" (Figure 1). 

(Figure 1)

Clicking this link will take them to the new student maintenance page (Figure 2).  From this one page, they can create new documents, see every document they have created, the status of documents (Figure 3), and a link to edit documents (NOTE: Documents can only be edited if they are saved.  Documents that have been reviewed or are under review cannot be edited.)

(Figure 2)

(Figure 3)

When students are creating new documents, students will now see 2 buttons at the bottom of the page (Figure 4). One reads, "Save and Exit," the other reads "Save and Publish Later."  If the student selects, "Save and Exit," then the document will be saved and submitted to you for approval.  If this option is selected, then they cannot go back and edit the document.  If they select "Save and Publish Later," then the document will be saved and NOT submitted to you for approval.  If this is selected, then the student CAN return to the document at a later time to continue working on it.

(Figure 4)

We hope you and your students enjoy this new feature.  Over the next few weeks you will see several other improvements to the site including a new attendance module, an updated homework/gradebook module, a student locker module, and a new messaging system to help you communicate with students and parents in your classroom!

Remember, our teacher websites are now FREE, so tell your friends and colleagues!  We are also holding a raffle for a FREE district website for 1 full year.  For more information on this raffle, please read our April 2009 newsletter.

Regards,

EZClassSites.com - Support
http://www.EZClassSites.com
(p) 888-45-CLASS (452-5277)
(f)  888-45-CLASS (452-5277)
(e) Support@EZClassSites.com