My Updated Course Sites

I recently updated my course web pages, which I design with iWeb. I drive considerable traffic to the site because I repeatedly tell parents that the assignment calendars reside there. I'm scheduled to teach three courses: six sections of American Government, one section of AP American Government & Politics (year course), and one measly section of Literature into Film. These are the changes:

Home Page

• Cosmetic changes to the welcome message.
• Major upgrade to my resume. I'm really pushing to do more professional development work whether it involves presentations, workshops, courses, employment. So I post this at the blog and on my sites hoping this helps me network a tad.

AP American Government & Politics Page

• I place this class first to showcase it a bit. It's a senior elective and I hope the parents of my younger students take a peek.
• I installed one of the CBL video reflections from last year. I think it communicates the pedagogy of the course.
• I simplified my report on AP scores. I'm proud of how my students have done, but I also want to implicitly communicate that the projects, blogging and the like contribute to strong test results and are not some kind of side show.

American Government Page

• This is probably the most important page. I think I made the right move to simplify it. I want to communicate that an organized, innovative teacher is in charge of the course. A cleaner design helps to do this.
  
  
• I've advertised this semester's projects but decided not to use links. If I wish to communicate to parents about the projects I think I will do so by email. They are complicated. By the same token, as I've blogged previously, I plan to offer some assessment options for unit one., but I've left this tricky bit of business off the site.

Literature into Film Page

• Setting up this page is a labor of love. I did this one the week after school was out even though I do not teach it until 2011. I wrote up a new syllabus and listed all the films with links to descriptions
  

• I installed a marvelous film criticism movie that one of my M-Hub leaders made for this class, last year. It's so creative!
  
  
• I lovingly described the film noir project that should be a lot of fun.

Check it out it out: Baker's course web pages
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Screen capture of the Lit into Film page.