A Home Page in a Snap

By Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2004

Homepage Builder, available on Scholastic's Web site (Scholastic.com), makes it easy to create a class home page. This handy tool enables teachers to easily communicate with students and families by posting everything from homework assignments and art projects to classroom announcements and summer-reading lists on their own custom Web pages.

Scholastic.com hosts the home pages and students access them via teacher-assigned user names and passwords. Students simply log in to check the latest assignments, recommended links, and other items their teachers have posted to help them with their schoolwork.

Mark Barrett, a third-grade teacher at Kimbark Elementary School in San Bernardino, CA, prefers Homepage Builder to commercial site-building software for its ease of use. "With this one, you just fill in the blanks," he says. Parents have used Barrett's class page to keep abreast of their kids' homework assignments and have found his direct e-mail link quite handy. The latter has put a virtual end to games of phone tag.

Digital images and selections from Scholastic's graphics gallery can be used to enhance the pages. Plus teachers can create links to helpful resources without knowing any HTML. Even better, says Barrett, the site "takes about five minutes to update."

To access Homepage Builder and begin constructing a classroom Web site, go to http://teacher.scholastic.com/homepagebuilder/monthly_tips.htm .