Allie Griffin, Classroom Websites Autistic Students and Their Parents
Allie Griffin, 2006 Golden Apple Scholar
This month’s Best Practice is for all administrators and teachers who are developing websites for their schools and classrooms.
Allie says:
Creating a meaningful and useful website is very important to my classroom due to the language deficits of my students. While typically developing children may go home and tell their guardians about their daily schedule and the upcoming days off from school, the students in my classroom are unable to communicate this way. Though daily notes go home, sometimes important information can get lost in the shuffle at home.
Our classroom website offers guardians the ability to see their child's daily schedule, the school calendar, important and useful links for autism awareness and support, great community resources, and useful websites for at-home instruction. The website offers contact information to ensure that there is always a way for guardians to get their questions answered in a timely manner. This website is just one more way to ensure that everyone is in the loop and able to feel on top of their child's education and school life. You can view our classroom website here.
In order to make our website useful for parents, I needed to enter information that was vital, along with things that guardians may be interested in knowing, but are unaware of due to their child's language barriers. This included calendars, daily schedules, links to daily songs, and autism awareness information. This information is supplemental and allows guardians a gateway for information and extra learning about their child's needs. I used Weebly to create my website because of its user friendly features and ability to have multiple pages linked to a homepage. I am not familiar with HTML, and this website is professional and useful while still being easy to create and edit.
Links:
My website is http://griffinsclass.weebly.com/. (Weebly is a great, userfriendly website for creating a classroom page.)
Check out my classroom projects at www.donorschoose.com/alliegriffin
The webpage www.havefunteaching.com has excellent songs, including individual children's rap songs for each letter of the alphabet to teach letter sounds. These songs can be used at ANY grade level. Please note, however, they are rap songs and are not immature. They would be good for older students that are at a lower academic level.
Download the PDF > Steps to Create a Website for Parents of Students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Allie Griffin is a 2006 Golden Apple Scholar. More from Allie:
I graduated in 2006, from Naperville North High School and attended Illinois State University, where I studied Special Education. Through college I volunteered for two summers in Uganda, Africa and mentored at-risk youth through College Mentors for Kids. I graduated with my Bachelors Degree in 2010, and began teaching on the Southside of Chicago in the Chicago Public School System. Currently, I teach at Ariel Community Academy in Kenwood. My classroom consists of 11 students with autism spectrum disorders. I am very passionate about helping my students through grant writing and have had five fully funded Donors Choose projects, received two Dell computers, and am halfway to getting a Promethean Interactive Whiteboard for my classroom!
Allie also has participated in Cubs Care and Special Olympics, where she coaches those activities.