Researching website creation technologies.

The technology toolbox for educators has made my research a lot more productive and less stressful than I had initially anticipated. This was a good starting point, and provided all the basic information and hyperlinks to many of the free website technologies that are available. Without this I wouldn’t have known where to begin as I hadn’t heard of any of these up until now. But which one to use?  Again, I initially went to the discussion board to see what others were intending to use and why. After spending some time browsing the internet, visiting the websites and watching introduction demos on the free technologies available, I felt that the only way I was actually going to be able to make a decision was by setting up an account with each and just having a go.

My thoughts on each:

I began by looking at Yola, for no particular reason. I watched the demo video provided. Free website builder/Yola.com I found this very useful, clear and simply. To set up an account it was very easy and they provided step-by-step instructions. I thought all was going well; great templates, easy navigation and it had some great reviews by others for being very user friendly. Examples of student’s e-portfolios from last year had also been created with Yola. However I soon stumbled across a problem. It would only allow you to create 3 pages. At first I thought it must be something I was doing wrong, but again after posting a question on the discussion board, others had the same difficulties. I found this to be far too limiting for my needs, so began looking elsewhere.

I decided to choose Weebly as my website creation technology, I found it the simplest to use, it offered a wide range of attractive design templates, unlimited pages and no oversized advertisements. Weebly offers good tutorials and there are examples provided by My Companion of previous students projects. Having a visual image/guide to what others have created was very helpful, myself being a visual learner.

Like both Weebly and Yola , Jimdo was relatively user friendly and offered many design options. However, I found the template design icons very small, making previewing difficult and time consuming.  The main reason for not choosing Jimdo was because unlike the other technologies I had explored, Jimdo displays a rather large inconvenient advertisement along the side of your website. I also didn’t like the idea that Jimdo posts to the web immediately. This places additional pressure on me to get it right the first time, rather than allowing me the freedom to experiment.

By clicking on the link from technology toolbox http://www.webhostingbillboard.com/my-reviews/google-web-hosting-review/. This took me to a page that offered reviews and provided a brief introductory video, which I didn’t find all that helpful.  Unlike Yola, which walks you through the step-by-step process of creating an account, Google Sites just told you what it could do, not show you how. Never the less I decided to give it a go, as Jenni had previously stated in one of the live classroom lectures and on the discussion board this is one she often would choose to use. I found it a little inconvenient having to set up another email account (Gmail) before getting started. I couldn’t use my Hotmail however maybe this is me just being a bit picky.  I feel after exploring this site, this maybe more appropriate for someone that knows what they are doing and isn’t trying to create a website for the first time.