I thought that before we go diving into the tips, tricks, and general how-to info for Google sites, I would offer up an easy-to-use alternative. Sorry for not bringing this up earlier, but quite honestly, I didn't have much experience with Weebly before today!
Before I get into the specifics of why Weebly is a great way to create a site, let me say that there are still many advantages to using Google Sites, especially if you've already got a pretty solid foundation of a site created from the training last Spring. The biggest plus is how easily integrated it is with Google Documents from Drive (not a huge surprise). If you are someone that has really embraced using Google Docs for your classroom, than using a Google product for your website just makes too much sense. For example, the Summer Test Out Resources Site I created last year in Google Sites is directly linked to several shared folders, so updating the site for students this year will be as simple as ensuring that the documents in those folders are the ones they will need.
Now to Weebly:
Signing up is a snap at weebly.com, just enter your email and create a password. You'll be taken to the editing window after giving your site a name. You'll be prompted to enter a url address for your site, just stick with the window that ends with ".weebly.com" - that's the free one! It asks if you want to purchase a domain with your custom ".com", but it's totally unnecessary.
There two reasons why I really liked using Weebly in the first five minutes of tinkering:
- The templates are really nice looking. Modern, simple & clean.
- The editing interface is VERY easy to use compared to Google Sites. As you probably have experienced, there is always the drop-down menu to "Manage Site" in Google Sites, and it's a matter of testing out quite a bit as far as getting your page to look right or organizing sub-pages. You're always having to click save after working in any area. Adding any content into your Weebly page is as simple as clicking and dragging to the area you want your content to show up!
For those that are willing to give it a try, you'll see what I mean. Visit my test site for more details and see what I did in about 20 minutes of playing around. jordanstestclasssite.weebly.com
Thanks to Elizabeth Lynn (@MrsLynnMath, lynnmath.weebly.com) for inspiring me to check into this cool website creator.
Sorry, the link in the first post to my test Weebly site is fixed now - jordanstestclasssite.weebly.com
ReplyDeleteMy bad - nothing like starting out with a bang.
Thanks to Mary D. at WO for emailing me this comment:
ReplyDelete"Greetings Fellow West Ottawans!
While I have not personally used the Weebly program, my son, Andrew, used the Weebly program to design his National History Day individual website last year. It was amazing to see what he and other students were able to create with this user friendly program.
I would describe Weebly to be a "Power Point like" program for building websites. From my observations of watching my 12 year old, this program is very quick to pick up and use. It was amazing to see all the various features Andrew utilized as he worked on his project over the course of several months.
In closing, Andrew's website was a national finalist for the National History Day that year. Check out Weebly for yourself! I'm sure that many of your students would appreciate the additional option for creating a project for you classes. "