"How to" Guideline series is coordinated by Helen Mongan-Rallis of the Education Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions to improve these guidelines please e-mail hrallis@d.umn.edu.

Creating a TeacherWeb.Com Website

(Guidelines developed during a workshop Kyle Smith, June 2005. Notes taken by Helen Mongan-Rallis)

Why use this?

If you have a website that students and their family can link to, it really helps you communicate your expectations with them. It enables you to put up notes and links. Kids like it because they can see when things are due. I give them a simple calendar each month so they can see what is going to be happening, when things are due. It can change, but they like it because it gives them an overview of what to expect.

As a classroom teacher, I'm really excited about the capabilities that TeacherWeb has. As a teacher, you are really busy and don't have a lot of time to be able to create things from scratch. What you choose will depend to some extent on your own technology skills, but also there are products out there that make it so quick and easy. Another reason to use commercial pages is that you don't have to go through the "hoops" of trying to put your web page up on your school's server.

For future teachers: you can show your TeacherWeb.Com site as an example of the kinds of things you can do as a teacher.

How to set up your site:

1. Create your site by going to http://TeacherWeb.com and clicking on "Teachers-Create Your Web." 
2. At the next page, click on the link to "Create your TeacherWeb® site now!"
3. Next, select "MN" from the pull down menu and click on the "submit" button.
4. Next, from the "Choose existing school name" drop down menu, select University of Minnesota Duluth (you have to scroll near to the very end of the list to find this). Also on this page, under "Enter Teacher or Class Name" write your name (I suggest that you choose your first initial and then last name, all lowercase, one word. The reason for this is this becomes the address for your web page, and it's best not to have spaces and capital letters in a web URL). Then click the submit button.
5. This takes you to a page called "Step 3 of 3" that tells you the URL of your website (e.g. mine is http://TeacherWeb.com/MN/UniversityofMinnesota-Duluth/hrallis). You should make a note of this URL for yourself and to give to anyone else with whom you would like to share your website (although they can locate your page by searching the TeacherWeb.Com site by state, then school, then name).
   • choose the design of your page from the choices provided (you can change these later, so no need to worry too much about these at this point)
   • next, in the "Account code" box, type in your account code (you will have this if you have signed up for an account; UMD students, we will give this account code to you).
   • in the next box, " Name to appear on web pages" type in your full name or name as you would like it to appear on your website (e.g. I typed "Helen Mongan-Rallis")
   • next enter your current e-mail address in the space provided (and you can select if you want your e-mail to be shown so that students/parents can e-mail you).
   • finally, choose a password and type it in the space provided, following the directions on the page.
   • click button to create your website
6. You will be taken to a confirmation screen that gives you the URL of your website and the URL of the page you should go to in order to update your website (e.g. mine is: http://TeacherWeb.com/MN/UniversityofMinnesota-Duluth/hrallis/update.htm). You will also receive an e-mail (sent to the e-mail address that you entered above) from Teacherweb.com confirming your account initiation. You can print and/or save the current page for future reference.

Editing Information about yourself:

1. Go the the URL of your webpage (the one in Step 6 above)
2. Click on the one that you want to edit e.g. the apple takes you to the teacher page
3. Click on the on the top divider that appears on your web page. This takes you to some boxes that enable you to enter and edit information about yourself. You can fill out all the fields or leave some blank.
4. When you are done, scroll the the bottom of the page and type in your password (the one you created when you first set up the site). You will get a message that tells you that your page has been updated successfully (or if it wasn't, it will tell you why).

Editing your site:

1. Go the the URL of your webpage
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page --> this shows you the Update Index. This is the place you will begin when you want to add to or edit anything on your site.
3. A useful link to take a look at from this page is the Help/FAQ. Take some time to explore each of these links as they are really helpful in guiding you through features of your teacherweb.com page

Example Editing the "teacher page"

1. Once you have clicked on your "teacher page" you will need to either click on the top border or bottom border. By clicking on the top border you will only be able to edit your "teacher page". If you click the bottom border you will then have access to edit all your web pages.
2. If you clicked on the top border then you can edit your "teacher" page.
3. If you clicked on the bottom border then you will need to click on the update link that is associated with the "teacher" link.
4. After you have clicked on the update link you will have the ability to type in information regarding your personal information. If there is any field that you do not want on the page or want to modify the name, leave it blank at this time. After completing your information enter your password to save changes.
5. To edit other pages click on the link for the different page then click the top or bottom border. Or click the bottom border on the "teacher" page first to edit the other links.

Other changes:

• Change graphics: for teacher page, homework page, announcement page and others. Example: This shows a list of all the icons that you have on your page. You can click on the library and change the icon to better suit the needs and interests of your students. As for any change, you will need to type in your password to submit the changes.
• Own picture: You can also load your own picture. In order to be able to be able to add a picture, you first have to have load them.
• Add/delete pages: the site comes with a list of default pages. You can customize which pages you want to have and also you can rename them anything that you wish.
• Customize home page: you can link to your school page, customize background, home page style, add a counter, footnotes, order of pages (the order in which icons are displayed or order of items within the frames).
• Color themes: you can select color them, frame style. Note: If you don't have a color theme then you won't be able to select frames. If you choose to have frames, then you won't have a home page. Thus you will need to set which page you want to load first. To do this, go to customize home page or customize frames, and change the order in which pages appear. The one you select to be the first one will be the page that loads first when you get to your web site.
• Background and divider lines: you can change background and divider lines (color or picture).

Add photos and documents

• Go to add photos and documents
• Click on "choose file" and navigate to where you have it saved on your computer. E.g. locate a PowerPoint that you created.
• Enter your password and click add --> you will get a message telling you that you have uploaded the files and how much space you have left.
• Click "Add/delete/rename pages and scroll down to the list of photos and comments. Check the first photo and documents and give it a name "PowerPoints" --> this will add this to your home page or frame
• Click on the PowerPoints link (in frame or home page) --> then click on the top bar of the page. This will bring up a list. Click on the first drop down menu and locate the file (in this case, PowerPoint) that you want to have listed on this page.

Slate page:

Users have to have Java enabled for this to work. It provides a white board on which users can draw and type text using the tools that are provided these show up as icons along.

Insert Photo on yourself

If you have a photo uploaded, you can resize and edit it. You have a total of 10 MB, so you need to make sure that you resize photos [Note: most people have their digital cameras set to take pictures at a resolution of 300 pixels per inch, which means each picture is very large. You should use a program like Adobe PhotoShop, or Gimp (free download) to resize the resolution to 72 pixels per inch and to change the pixel dimension of the image (e.g. 300 pixels wide), or you can resize it using the tools provided within TeacherWeb].

To upload picture:

1. Go to master update page
2. Click on add photos or documents button --> choose the picture that you want to bring in
3. enter your password and click on add photos/documents
4. Go to "change graphics" button -- scroll own to Teacher page. From the drop down menu select the picture that you want to include.
5. To edit the photo size, go to the master update page -->select "resize/edit photos." If your picture

Add Links Plus page

Use this option if you want to have a web page that provides information for students and links that you want them to follow (example: Read some information and then follow links to complete assigned task).

• Create a links plus page
• Rename it so that the page shows up as the topic of the page (as opposed to "links plus" e.g. if you want a page for your students that takes them to websites that are virtual tours, name it "Virtual Tours."
• In master list, go to virtual tour, and click to edit it.
• In the description box, explain the purpose of the page and the links that follow. Then for each link, enter the name of the site and a description of what is at the site (or what you want students to do when they visit the site)

Schedule

1. From master page, click on schedule
2. Click on the top bar to edit it
3. You can change the number of rows and columns
4. Enter information into the cells.

Calendar

• Pick month, date and write down the events in the box provided.
• Puzzle Generator
• From update page, select puzzle generator.
• Choose word search or number block or word search

Password Protect

If you have created something (such as a handout) that you don't want to be available for all who access your website, then you need to password protect it (example: if you want to share a scanned copy of a page from an article. Under fair use law, you may share a copy with your class (not with anyone who accesses your website). By password protecting this file you are restricting access just to the students in your class.

• From edit page, click on password protect.
• Under page type, the files that you have uploaded will appear
• Click on the button to protect page for those files you want to protect
• Part 2: type in the password that you will give students in the "viewer code" box.

Response link

1. Enter your password
2. Click on edit response page: this gives you the choice or a variety of types of items.
3. True/false:select the number of questions --> enter
4. This updates the page and gives you a page that has the number of true/false items that you want to create. It provides you with space to enter in the instructions for what you want students to do, the questions, and the answers. Enter these.
5. Scroll down to the options: choose here from the options on how students are going to submit their responses: (a) e-mailed individually (b) accumulated in your file to be collected when you click the "collect all response" button (c) self-test
6. Put your password in and update.
7. If you select option (b), then once students have taken the test, you need to return to editing the test page and click on the "collect responses." This will then collect the responses of all the students who took your test and submit them to you as an e-mail

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