2nd+assignment

 1. Education.Weebly.com. Weebly is a free website hosting tool that allows you to post simple websites for free. You can either have a @weebly.com extension or you can import a domain name that you already have from somewhere else.

Special Features: · It is free. · It has a very simple format for building. · You can use more complicated HTML formats if you like. · It has approximately 35 different formats that you can adopt for your website. The picture that you put on as a header will carry through to all the pages. · You can add RSS feed readers that will display headlines that link back to the latest posts on your favorite blogs (just be sure to type in the site's feed URL, not the home page URL). (Time.com)

Strengths: · It is free and doesn’t require that you have adds on your site. · Almost anyone can figure it out. ( Although it still has a learning curve.) · It has a drop and drag component that allows you to build a website. · It allows you to blog. · It allows you to get visitor feedback. · There is a seamless integration between pictures and text. · The educator account is considered the best for librarians and educators. You can have up to 10 students on each account, where the teacher manages the content of student website.

Weaknesses: · Even though it says it’s free, when you try using any of the special features, such as video, you have to upgrade to Weebly Pro. However, you can get around that by linking to youtube.com. You can only have two domains per student. · There were hosting problems. One page opened and the other had a glitch which refused further editing. The only way around that was to delete the problem page and start again. You can also get upgraded if you refer a fellow · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">It is difficult to edit text once it has been applied.

2. Similar Tools There are many, many ways to host a website. However, Weebly for Educators is the best site for librarians. Weebly is listed in Time Magazine’s top 50 sites for 2007 <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt;">. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Another close competitor is Google Sites. It is a little different because it is highly interactive. When you build a site you can easily create, collaborate, access, and share information resources, assignments, projects, calendars, and even Web pages, all using Google Apps. It is also had a drag and click feature. The wiki also looked appealing. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">EducationWeebly is the best for librarians because it lets you manage up to 40 student accounts.

School Media Specialists can use a free webpage for many things. The Big House uses its website to host the online catalog, give tutorials, and provides an interactive calendar. A free web page has a myriad of functions in a classroom. Teachers can use them as an education tool or students can use them as a showcase for their work. By having a place where others can view pictures and videos, you will spur students to work in other creative mediums.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">3. Connection to teaching and learning **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">

1. Pathfinder. 2. LMS Blog 3. LIBRARY Home page /Big House Library 4. Portfolio of jing clips

Carolyn Foote has enhanced her presence on the web by creating a blog. (SLJ 1/1/10) While she does not have a set schedule as some other librarians do, she keeps her site current by keeping posts topical. For example she’s written up “World Kindness Week,” posted database widgets for students to try out and featured movie tie-ins. A widget, she explains, “is an embeddable element, one that’s usually dynamic, meaning it “does something.” Some examples might be a live poll, a database search box, or a box that displays your photos from Flickr. (Widgets use to be a term for fictional items that was often used in economics.)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">5. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Examples of student (or LMS) work ** [|**http://www.bighouselibrary.com/**]**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> This website offers a calendar, a catalog and instructions how to use the library. A stellar example of what can be done on this website. ** [|**http://rblibrary.weebly.com/**]**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> -A not very exciting web site. It has links to sources of information, but doesn’t do anything itself. ** [|**http://discoverynorthbay.weebly.com/map.html**]**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> A very nice interactive site by a museum. **

[|**http://storyword.weebly.com/**]**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> The beginning of my websites ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">5 [] This short website has several jing capture buttons on how to use Weebly.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Learning how to harness the power of technology is a never ending quest for librarians. Although there are NOT that many examples of libraries that use Weebly just yet, the example I provided shows that it is possible to use Weebly to generate a full-scale library website and blog. It is also possible to set up a web site for a short event, such as Greek Festival or Valentine’s Day.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13pt;">6. Final comment **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Works Cited Foote, Carolyn. "Putting Your Best Foot Forward." //School Library Journal// 56.1 (2010): 40-42. //Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts//. EBSCO. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">[]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">7. Recommended Resources **<span style="color: black; display: none; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 10pt;">©2009 Produced by NewsOK.com. All rights reserved..

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Hargadon, Steve. "Web 2.0 Smackdown." //School Library Journal// 54.10 (2008): 23. //Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts//. EBSCO. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">[]

 Peter, Tim. “Taking a look at Weebly.” <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">[|Thinks] Interactive marketing and e-commerce strategy blog for the local, mobile, social web (2009)

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Wright, Simon. Website Reviews: Is the Free personal website creation service Weebly any good. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">[] No date. (video link) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">[] [] []