More about Website Creation Tools

In a previous post I shared my frustration with Google Sites. But what are the alternatives? What can I recommend to teachers who want to create a simple website for their classes?

In working with various programs over the last couple of weeks, I've become more familiar with the options. As is my habit, I created a diagram to organize my thoughts and express my understanding. You see the result here.

Most people want something that is easy to use; that's understandable. However, some people want to have the flexibility to create, arrange, and lay out page elements however they want. Other people don't want that; they want a highly structured page where they are just filling in blanks. To my way of thinking, the four tools listed in the diagram each occupy a different spot when plotted along those two axes: easy-hard, flexible-structured.

Our district has a site that pre-dates our adoption of GAFE, that some teachers still use for their websites. It is purely for hosting, with no creation tool. We have Microsoft Expressions available for teachers to use to create and edit pages, which then have to be uploaded by ftp. Within Expressions (or any other html editor), teachers have as much flexibility as they want to arrange, lay out, and design their pages. The flexibility comes at a cost; you have to know what you're doing. For this reason, I've put Expressions in the "flexible, hard-to-use" quadrant.

Google Sites is also hard to use, but it does provide some structure for pages. This earns it a spot in the "structured, hard-to-use" quadrant.

Easier to use than either of these two options are two web-based programs that offer free hosting (as well as premium upgrades for those who want them). I've tried out both of their free versions over the last few weeks. My evaluation is that the main difference between wix.com and weebly.com is in the amount of structure provided. In a Wix website, once you select your theme, you have a lot of control over the location and look of page elements, text, images, etc. Weebly provides more structure for the page, restricting what elements can be placed in what locations. The flexibility of Wix comes at a little bit of a cost: the learning curve for Wix is a bit higher than for Weebly, and Wix does not let you change design themes once you've built your site. With Weebly, you can change themes as much as you like, because the basic structure of the page remains the same. Wix, then, gets the spot in the "flexible, easy-to-use" quadrant, while Weebly goes under "structured, easy-to-use".

Whichever tool you choose to create your website, it is important to make sure that parents and students can easily find the information for which they are searching. Think simple rather than complicated, and after your students have been using it for a few weeks, ask them about how your site could be improved. Don't be afraid to make changes based on student or parent feedback. A website editor that is easy to use makes that idea much less daunting.

5 Reasons I Am Done With Google Sites

Photo by Sybren Stüvel on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Our district uses Google Apps, so all of our teachers and students have access to Google Sites. For the last three years, as teachers have asked me, I've recommended that they use Google Sites to create their class or personal website. Initially, as they struggled, I figured it was just because there was a learning curve, and it would get easier. Besides, Google is always updating their apps, so the small difficulties we encountered would surely be remedied soon, right?

As time went on, and I tried various ways to teach Google Sites to teachers, and as they continued to struggle year after year, I came to realize that it's not the teachers' problem. Google Sites is a pain in the ass. It needs to be completely overhauled, yet the only "updates" Google has made in the last two years are completely minor tweaks to a ridiculously outdated interface. Google Sites was pretty cool in 2011. It is no longer 2011, and I am finished recommending it to teachers.

1) Why in the world is it so hard to edit a sidebar or horizontal navigation bar? Even teachers who use other websites and programs with ease find this rigamarole frustrating and difficult. Teachers who just want to add a new page for a new school year find it nearly impossible.

2) Why is it so hard to simply create a text link to an uploaded file? Most of my teachers just want to upload files for students and parents to download. They can post those files at the bottom of a page or in a file-cabinet page. But then creating text links to those files, like in a class calendar, or assignment post, requires them to right-click to copy a link and then pretend that their file is NOT in their Google Site, but is actually an external URL. This is the most common thing my teachers want to do, and yet it is ridiculously difficult. I made this video when I started as a ToSA, but even that doesn't help.

3) Why can't we sort in a file cabinet page? File cabinet pages are great if you have about one screen worth of files. Any more than that, and the page becomes pretty useless. You can create folders, but you can't set the order of folders. You can't sort files or folders. You can't search for filenames. And if you happen to add a file without a description, you have to know to click in a blank white space to add that description later. Seriously?

4) Want to format a table? Hope you know HTML or CSS or both, because you're not doing that outside of the HTML editor.

5) If I never see the "Some HTML tags are not supported and have been removed" message again, it will be too soon.

It's 2015. Google should either support Sites or abandon it. I've abandoned it. Teachers who want to create and maintain a simple class website should either use Blogger or Weebly. Neither of them is perfect, but they're still hundreds of times easier to use than Sites. I'd love to hear suggestions for other free, modern, easy website builders.

On Locking Down the Browser

Photo by succo on pixabay.com (CC0)

Pretty frequently, teachers ask me some version of this question:

"I want to do online testing with my students using [such-and-such system]. Is there a way to make it so they can't go to any other website while they're testing?"

What they're asking me for is a "lock-down browser", similar to what we use in California for SBAC testing. It presents the test in full-screen mode, without toolbars or tabs or any way to access anything else on the computer without exiting the testing session, which would notify the teacher. There are commercial counterparts available, but our district does not purchase any of them, and we are unlikely to do so in the future.

The concern from teachers seems to be that if students are taking a test on a computer or tablet, they could cheat by looking up answers on Google or some other site, or communicate covertly with each other during the test. Given that a commercial lock-down browser is not in the near future for our district, here are some strategies to address concerns about cheating on online tests.

1) Walk around the room. How do you prevent cheating when students are taking a pencil-and-paper test? You watch what they are doing during the test. You can do the same thing if students are testing on a computer. Remind students that they should have only one window open and one tab open in the browser. It's pretty simple for you to spot anything else open by looking at the taskbar or tab bar. This was my strategy when having my students take tests with Google Forms. The only cheating problem I had was old-fashioned: one student looking over at another's screen.

2) Write "non-Googleable" questions. If you are writing your own questions, try to write higher-level questions without answers that are easily found on Google. If students can look up the answer online, why should they have to memorize that answer just to give it back on a test? Questions at depth of knowledge 3 or 4 are typically much more difficult to answer with a simple and quick Google search.

3) Search your own questions beforehand. How do you know whether your questions are "Googleable"? You have to try it out yourself. Try a few keyword searches related to your test or individual questions. Also search for the entire question within quotes. Less-sophisticated internet searchers typically just type in the entire question, "asking" Google like it's Siri or some other personal assistant. If you find quick answers, think about how you can rewrite your questions.

4) Let them use Google. If your test questions require higher-order thinking, students may need resources and additional evidence to support their claims. Give them a task that requires them to pull together information from multiple sources, and let them find the sources as they can. Then you don't have to worry about keeping them from going to other pages; in fact, you want them to!

5) Replace "tests" with other types of assessments. There is nothing sacred about closed-book tests. If students can demonstrate their learning with some other type of project, presentation, video, or writing, let them! An authentic assessment is worth more than some artificial multiple-choice test.