Death of a Website

In the summer of 2000, I took a workshop on creating websites. We used Front Page, a program that didn’t make us code directly in HTML, and made it easy to create simple web pages. I was hooked. I created an elaborate teacher website that looked like the computer interface from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

At first, my website was a simple way for students and others to get the handouts that we used in class. I linked the homework calendars, syllabuses, specific assignment sheets, and handouts in HTML form.

Then I realized that I could do far more. I created an FAQ page to address the many parent questions that I had fielded for decades. I took many useful handouts, from grammar and writing to study strategies, research, and public speaking, and put them in a special resources section of the website. I posted my schedule in great detail so students would find it easier to make appointments with me or get in touch.

I speak at several school presentations throughout the year. I talk to seniors and their parents about college essays and freshman parents about responding to progress notices. I took these presentations, my notes on them, and related information and created web pages for them. A few years later, I recorded all of Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities with explanations and annotations. I posted them on my website.

In short, I put my teacher life on the web for all to see.

Students were not yet carrying around computers during this time. Neither the Chromebook nor the iPad had been released and portable computers were very expensive. However, we had desktop computers throughout the school, and almost every student had access to one at home. Handwritten assignments were becoming rare, and most students produced their work on computer.

I suppose you could call this era Web 1.0. When we started to use tools like turnitin.com, a server to which students upload their work that checks for plagiarism and allows for digital feedback, I needed to make some significant updates to my website. I incorporated Google products into it.  I gave it a makeover.

By this point, my website had several thousand pages, most of which were always accessible. In about fifteen years, I had fully integrated this website and its online resources into the fabric of my teaching.

In the summer of 2015, our district updated its website, and all of a sudden, I could not get to my website and make changes. I called the person in charge and was told that my website had been “legacied.” I almost threw up. I thought I might cry. I explained that this was not a little three-page site with my phone number and email address; it was an integral part of my teaching! I begged not to have it taken away!

 

I was heard. My website was “migrated.” I continued to change the quotation on the front page weekly. I updated it so it had everything students, parents, case managers, and others would need.

After we distributed Chromebooks and kids brought their individual devices to school, the website became a digital blackboard, a powerful way to extend the classroom beyond the walls of the school.

My district is now going to use a learning management system called Schoology next year and it will work as well or better than my old website. Schoology will be one-stop shopping for all learning materials, grades, and school information. It will be better than my old website.

So I am about to voluntarily close it. No one is making me. It is time. It has lived its life and now there are tools that will function more effectively. Mr. Hirsch’s Online Classroom will close after almost eighteen years of service. That’s a long run for technology in the twenty-first century. I don’t know if the old site will still be accessible, but I don’t think that anyone will miss it. It lasted longer than any of my computers.

Who knows how future children will access school information and on what devices? Perhaps I hung on to the old website too long. My goal is always to help develop independent and self-directed learners. My old website helped me do this. I am hopeful that the new system will do this even better. At the end of this school year, my website will truly be officially retired. It is sad, but it is time.