Weebly

Weebly is a website that allows teachers/educators to create their own websites in order to make managing their classroom and staying connected easier. The website allows you to make so many different kinds of websites from personal to blogs(great for teachers to post their ideas or classroom hacks to!), or business websites to portfolios which are great to link future bosses to!

Step-by-Step Guide to Weebly

First you need to go log into Weebly or set up an account. Then you will be taken to the starter screen and if you are new to this skip to Step 3, but if you already have made an account and experemented with Weebly you will be greeted by this screen instead.
From your dashboard you will click the plus sign you see the above screen shot. This will then bring you to this menu where you will choose Add Site. This then allows you to create a new website of your choice.
This choice brings you to the screen where you can decide what kind of website you want to create. You will get to decide if you want a Business type of site, Portfolio, Event, etc. For my example guide I have chosen to do a blog.
After choosing the type of site and then choosing one of the sample websites given to you like I have, you are free to browse the tabs available in the website before choosing the Start Editing button that you will see in this screen shot.
I recommend choosing the website with weebly.com after it as this is the free version of creating your website. For the other options you will have to choose a payment form. I chose the free version for my example though.
Once you have your editing screen up for your website you are free to edit it how you please with the many options and tools at your disposal. From the Basics to Media you can add anything to your website to personalize according to what you need the website for. This all being seen in the Build tab that you will see in the next screen shot.
From here you can go to pages to edit the different pages your website has pre-set to it, Themes to change the color theme to some of the features of the website, and from there you can add products if you create things to sell. Apps has other apps that Weebly has created and offers you to use and in Settings you can change the name of the site, for mine it is currently a blog but I can change it to Business or Portfolio at the click of a button. You can also choose editors in this screen to make editing not just your task, but allow others to help you. You can also click the computer monitor to change your point of view from a desktop version to a mobile version of your website.
When you finish editing and your website looks the way you want it to you click Publish and can search your website in the search engine to check it out. After clicking the publish button you are greeted by a sharing screen to share your website with friends or coworkers!!

A Video Guide to Weebly

Ebookrecording.mp4

FAQ's

with Answers

I'm new to Weebly and not sure where to start.

Weebly offers a Beginner's Guide video similar to my screencast video on their website as well as a series of articles that will get you up and running with Weebly quickly that you can get to here.

Series of Articles on Weebly

I have a purchase or billing related question.

Many billing questions can be answered on the Weebly page concerning these questions here. If you want to upgrade your site though to have more features available to you to use you can click here.

I have questions about using my own domain name with my site.

For your domain name with your site you can either transfer it to Weebly or point the domain name to Weebly site by modifying the A records.

I have questions about how to build my site.

If you wish to build your site up you can follow this link here. This link allowing you to be able to browse the full range of articles that will help you building your sit up.

I want to cancel my account or plan.

You can delete your Weebly account at any time by going to your account page and using the delete account button on the left hand side. You can also keep your account open and cancel a paid service by going here.

Pros and Cons to Weebly

Pros:

Weebly is very user-friendly, drag-drop website builder. With probably one of the easiest website builders available they don't overwhelm you with an excessive number of bells and whistles. They also include all the basics in building a functional website.

Weebly also introduces better and more stylish templates where are nice improvements to what they used to offer. Their templates are also mobile responsive so that your website will look professional both on desktop and mobile.

Weebly also offers over 40 pre-set page layouts for you to choose from when you get started. These are all compiled within popular page layouts for home, about, services, contact, restaurant menu, and portfolio pages. You can pick any one of them and start customizing or altering the layouts to fit your own individual look.

Cons:

Weebly only allows you to change font styles and overall color scheme for each template. If you wanted to make modification beyond that you will have to modify the codes of the template in order to do so.

They are also much slower than other website creating sites when it comes to introducing new tools/features that most users would want.

Another complaint among users is that Weebly's blogging functions are fairly primitive as nowadays blogs want the ability to highlight related posts, most poplar posts, or latest posts. Weebly has yet to incorporate these tools into their blog. They do offer you the blog basics, but showcasing related, popular, or latest posts as an option should also be one of those basic tools that Weebly sadly does not have available.

Two Samples you can use Weebly for as far as Activities in the classroom go!

Weebly would be best to use for creating a classroom website. You can use it to store your homework assignments to students and post your lessons there. You can also use Weebly to have easier access to your PLN's!

As you can see in the below sample of a teacher website, the teacher has taken it a step further and has posted a blog along with different information and sites for each grade level in each tab using Weebly. This keeping her website clean and all the grade levels are listed in pages for easier access. A teacher website is not to get confused with a classroom website. The use of this site is merely to provide helpful sites to different teachers and organize the sites by grade level.

This is a classroom website below. The teacher created a classroom website that has a eye-catching home page for parents and students alike. This is great because you can also use your Weebly sit for open house. She also has pages set up for classroom discussions, books the class will be reading and a place for parents ot look at. She also has a blog page and a kid's corner page for students to go to.

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