Ok, I'm sold. I've been testing different website builders and I must say, I love Weebly for the classroom. Here's why:
First, it's visually appealing and makes intuitive sense. The templates look professional and it's great that students can see what the website looks like as they make changes instead of needing to go back and forth between the design and the preview. This feature reduces cognitive interference as students experiment with design principles and explore the impact that each change can make on the website's overall feel. The menus are self-explanatory and the drag and drop interference takes very little time to learn. Students can concentrate on learning and applying good communication principles, such as coordinating text and images to enhance meaning, relating to an audience, and setting up a strong organization structure.
I also love the fact that Weebly makes it easy to see how the website will look on a mobile device. If students use a space bar instead of the spacer to move their text, they'll soon see that it messes up the mobile view. Instructors can use Weebly's interface as an entry point for talking about the importance of always testing a website on multiple devices and considering mobile design needs.
Of course, if students are serious about learning web design, they'll need to understand how to create their own mobile view, which means graduating to a more robust web platform that requires more hands-on development of page layouts. Weebly can prepare students for this transition. The "Edit html/css" button on the Design tab lets users see and modify the code behind the page (while previewing the results in real time) and even gives a brief tutorial on essential html and css elements, to keep the adventurous student from destroying his website as he explores. As an introduction to web design for the student who isn't majoring in computer science, Weebly gives me all the tools I need to help students think about important concepts and the basic building blocks for a website.
My favorite thing about Weebly is that it is was designed with educators in mind. You can create a free account for your classroom that includes up to 40 student accounts, which you can easily access to review rather than hunting through different web addresses provided by your students. You also have full control over privacy, so you can help make sure that content won't damage a student's professional image before releasing it to the public eye. Later this week, I'll talk more about privacy considerations when having your students post online.
There are a few things I don't like about Weebly. When the editor is viewed on a small screen, the preview overlaps the menu, causing a glitch in the way I swipe on my Macbook Air. If I'm not careful, I'll swipe past the menu and end up on a blank screen. It's a little annoying, but I can refresh the screen to resolve it. I've not encountered the problem on my iMac or my PC laptop. You can also only get 5 pages with a free account, so watch out if you need something more complicated than that. I generally find that 5 pages is enough for what I want students to do, though. Overall, I think the drawbacks are minimal compared with the possibilities of Weebly. It's a simple interface that doesn't take too much time for students to learn, giving me more time to teach them about content and design. I like Weebly for the classroom. What about you?
First, it's visually appealing and makes intuitive sense. The templates look professional and it's great that students can see what the website looks like as they make changes instead of needing to go back and forth between the design and the preview. This feature reduces cognitive interference as students experiment with design principles and explore the impact that each change can make on the website's overall feel. The menus are self-explanatory and the drag and drop interference takes very little time to learn. Students can concentrate on learning and applying good communication principles, such as coordinating text and images to enhance meaning, relating to an audience, and setting up a strong organization structure.
I also love the fact that Weebly makes it easy to see how the website will look on a mobile device. If students use a space bar instead of the spacer to move their text, they'll soon see that it messes up the mobile view. Instructors can use Weebly's interface as an entry point for talking about the importance of always testing a website on multiple devices and considering mobile design needs.
Of course, if students are serious about learning web design, they'll need to understand how to create their own mobile view, which means graduating to a more robust web platform that requires more hands-on development of page layouts. Weebly can prepare students for this transition. The "Edit html/css" button on the Design tab lets users see and modify the code behind the page (while previewing the results in real time) and even gives a brief tutorial on essential html and css elements, to keep the adventurous student from destroying his website as he explores. As an introduction to web design for the student who isn't majoring in computer science, Weebly gives me all the tools I need to help students think about important concepts and the basic building blocks for a website.
My favorite thing about Weebly is that it is was designed with educators in mind. You can create a free account for your classroom that includes up to 40 student accounts, which you can easily access to review rather than hunting through different web addresses provided by your students. You also have full control over privacy, so you can help make sure that content won't damage a student's professional image before releasing it to the public eye. Later this week, I'll talk more about privacy considerations when having your students post online.
There are a few things I don't like about Weebly. When the editor is viewed on a small screen, the preview overlaps the menu, causing a glitch in the way I swipe on my Macbook Air. If I'm not careful, I'll swipe past the menu and end up on a blank screen. It's a little annoying, but I can refresh the screen to resolve it. I've not encountered the problem on my iMac or my PC laptop. You can also only get 5 pages with a free account, so watch out if you need something more complicated than that. I generally find that 5 pages is enough for what I want students to do, though. Overall, I think the drawbacks are minimal compared with the possibilities of Weebly. It's a simple interface that doesn't take too much time for students to learn, giving me more time to teach them about content and design. I like Weebly for the classroom. What about you?