About
Mr. Girard Online began as RobGirard.net (now the domain for the larger Rob Girard Network) and was primarily designed to enhance and supplement my classroom English language, literature, and composition instruction. It was originally inspired by work that I did in Dr. Roxanne Mountford’s Advanced Composition class at the University of Arizona.
I developed my first class website as a student-teacher, and later I built websites for science and social studies classes to which I’d been assigned as a long-term sub. Ultimately, I created RobGirard.net to be a significant pedagogical component of my classroom instruction. The third version of the site was chosen as the 2005 Arizona Technology in Education Alliance Exemplary Web Site Award winner for a secondary classroom. You can view the former (now static) version of the site’s homepage here.
Most teacher websites are stale, static affairs that are rarely maintained and updated, and which fail to take advantage of the vast information and resources available to students and teachers to fortify learning in our wired global society. Granted, websites done properly are time-consuming beasts, but I wanted Mr. Girard Online to be an extension of my brick and mortar classroom and a portal for learning about and experiencing events and ideas around the world as they happened. So, I designed Mr. Girard Online to be a vital learning tool where students can access class information, work, and materials; take quizzes and exams, and track their grades; post their writing through electronic portfolios and blogs; follow political, historical, and cultural headlines; and participate in our classroom culture as it’s enhanced through the Internet and World Wide Web. Parents can use Mr. Girard Online to follow their students’ assignments and monitor progress; colleagues can use the site to access class materials my students and I develop and to witness the growth of a new classroom ecology.
I am greatly indebted to my very good friend Adalberto Rodriguez, Pueblo Magnet High School’s webmaster and founder of AdL Productions, for the support and inspiration he’s given me over the years. It’s because of his creative guidance that I continue to revise my site, and though I’ll never approach his level of web design, I’ll always look to his creative example.
If you’re interested in my experience and qualifications, check out my vitae.
Thanks for taking the time to browse these pages.
- Mr. Girard
Note: Because the nature of web-publishing is fast and furious and I tend to make mistakes, I’ll award extra points to any students who find spelling or usage errors on any of the pages of this site or on any other pages in the Rob Girard Network.
Dig? Dig!
