How to Get Started Creating a Class Web Site

Have you ever wished that you could create a website for your classroom, but thought that it would be too difficult?

It used to be that building a website took a decent amount of technical knowledge and time, as well as some cold hard cash for web hosting. If you want to build an elaborate site, this may still be true, but there are plenty of tools available to help anyone create a website quickly, freely, and easily. No prior knowledge required, except how to type, point, and click!

Here are some tips, based on the guide, "How to Create a Classroom Website."

Where Should I Build This Site?

The first thing you should consider is: where should I host this site?

There are a ton of freely available web hosts out there. Many of these will require you to show ads on your site, which you may not like. Two excellent options that provide you with 100% free hosting and no ads are Wordpress.com and Blogger.

Both of these options have another advantage. They come with a blogging platform pre-installed.

This is a set of software that automates the process of publishing information to your website. With other free web hosts, you would need to either manually create the web pages or manually install a blogging platform.

What Is the Site Going to Do?

That's kind of up to you, but in general a class website should do two things - open up a line of communication between you, your students, and their parents, as well as provide a place to store information for students to use.

Here's an example. Use the website to post a daily recap of the notes and/or assignments from class. This way students can use the website as a study resource and as a way to find work that they missed while absent.

Take a look at this tour around an existing classroom website to get a feel for what Wordpress can do you for.

How Do I Put Information on the Website?

Both Wordpress and Blogger make use of what's called a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.

You simply type in the information that you want to appear on the website, hit the "Publish" button, and voila! You can use buttons similar to your word processor to add formatting to spice things up. There are also options to upload files and pictures to include in your posts.

How Do I Change the Look of the Site?

Normally, this is one of the most time consuming and technical aspects of web development. You could spend days or weeks tweaking the look of your site.

Luckily, Wordpress and Blogger come with a bunch of pre-designed themes. All you have to do is look through the list and pick one that suits your tastes. With the click of a button, the whole look of your site will change.

For detailed instructions, look at this quick guide to navigating and using Wordpress' theme gallery.

Play Around! Experiment!

Wordpress and Blogger are both great tools, and the more you experiment with them the more you can do.

Go sign up for a Wordpress account, and take a look at this thorough guide to creating your classroom site. You'll be up and running before you know it.