There are many reasons to create a web site:
Personal interest/hobby- Personal journal (blog)
- Small groups – church ladies group
- Events – class reunion
- Classroom communication
- Collaboration on a project
- Sharing sermons or photos or videos or …
- _________ (Other)
I’m guessing most people can think of something they could share on a web site. And there are lots of free web site platforms where you can put down roots. Here are my current favorite free web site building platforms:
Google Sites
sites.google.com – Google Sites offers a large selection of design templates, lots of customization options and complete flexibility with sharing and collaboration. There is also a huge and ever-growing selection of pre-made full site layouts which can be used for a jump-start.
Help getting started:
Sample site – SNAHS Band Reunion
Orbs
orbs.com – Winner of my prestigious “Dead Easy” award, Orbs is actually fun! It offers point and click edit that isn’t intimidating to beginners along with great design options.
Help getting started:
Sample site – Training Lutheran School (a dummy site I set up for demo purposes)
Wikispaces
wikispaces.com – This one is for my teacher friends! Wikispaces is the ultimate classroom collaboration tool. And educators get free accounts. The idea is that contributors (students, perhaps) log into the site and creatively build their group projects online.
Help getting started:
Sample site – Greetings From the World – Winner of the 2010 Edublog Award for Best Educational Blog
Blogger
blogger.com – Blogs are probably the best know personal web site platforms. Designed for personal journaling and organized by date, they make a great platform for writing as well as sharing photos and videos. Blogger has been around since the beginning of the blogging craze and is now owned by Google.
Help getting started:
Sample site – Camp Phillip’s Robot Report
WordPress
wordpress.com – You might have guessed that I saved the best for last. WordPress is another widely used blogging platform. It also happens to be the platform used for this site and the WELSTech show notes site. So it is the platform I am most familiar with.
Help getting started:
Sample site – Christ the King, Palm Coast, FL
This post is a part of the Summer 2011 WELS Hacker series on the WELSTech Podcast.
