One of the suggestions for actions from the Leadership Team meeting was that we investigate ways of sharing best practice with regard to successful creative learning strategies as way of convincing colleagues, students, parents and members of the local community about their value in 21st century education. Consequently, I've been searching for free website creation tools online so that we could make a site dedicated to sharing this information. I came across Weebly this evening and spent about 30 minutes creating a 4 page site structure and Home page introduction. I was really impressed with how easy it was to structure the content and manage the various elements of the site. It seemed to offer a lot of flexibility in terms of design and I really like the hover previews.How do you feel about the idea of setting up a site for sharing lesson plans and projects featuring creative learning strategies? Do you know of any better sites than Weebly for doing this? What kinds of features and structure should the site have in order for it to be useful?
6 comments:
It looks alot like yola.
I like this idea of using the web as a way of presenting outside of the school but could tallis shorts be extended - or the school website - to be able to present documents as well as videos and images. Like you can already download them.
Maybe the school website can provide all this just needs a bit of re-presentation. Make it more pleasing to the eye in other words and easier to use.
An extra homepage or website thats just extended to the school site with extra features like the hover thing?
I agree with what Amber says it would be nice to see the school website and for it to be made a bit mroe eye frendly. At the moment when the school site is opened the photogallery, Tallis shorts, and talk all look amazing however when the main site is opened... it feels very dated and blocky? I assume this is because the site is hosted by Uniservity and makes it easyer for teachers to edit the page?
However I do like the look of Weebly a lot! and it does not seem like a bad idea to use this! - Have a link to it from the school website???
I think, like Tom, that the main Tallis website is a bit stiff beyond the opening Tallis shorts etc, and that a section on a revamped site, putting into context the creative learning outcomes and then linking to Weebly might be a good idea.
John Riches
I definitely agree with Tom W and Creative john (Riches) could we perhaps liaise with Tom DW? The reason I mentioned Tom DW because some of his great creations (Tallis mini sites)
Why do we have to have to have it hosted by a university?
How many people actually use it to add content?
Our school website looks great when you first enter it with the photo exhibitions (Did TAK create it?) Tallis shorts and Tallis Talk,
however the website inside just reminds me of the school breeze blocks.
BR
There are a couple of issues here:
1. We have been with Uniservity for some years now. We were pretty early adopters of this kind of technology and one of the few schools I knew who had invested in a virtual learning environment. Over the years, it has got a bit tired. The work Tak! has done for us on the front end is really impressive and shows up the weakness of the back end.
2. We will probably be moving over to a new VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) with the new school (hopefully before the actual move) and so we'll have an opportunity to think again about what we need.
3. I've spoken to Tak! about the possibility of looking again at the whole front end of the site. I think we could create a suite of engaging, interactive experiences at the front end of the site and then make the rest password protected and hidden from view.
My question is therefore, what would you want to see at the front end of our new school website? What information should we include and for whom? How do we engage visitors, provide them with the latest school news, entertain with creative products (films, audio, photographs etc.) and communicate the ethos of the school?
I think it's important to have calender and possibly News but now we have Tallis Tv and Tom Tom magazine, is that necessary?
I think a way of sharing video, photography and audio is vital to get people engaged with the school and want to find out more linking back to Tom W idea of a promotion video we don't really need one if we have a good website.
I'm going to give this some hard thinking and hopefully come up with some ideas.
Post a Comment