After a delicious lunch provided by the folks at SchoolCenter, I attended another BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) session called "Getting Your Message Across: Exploring New Online Website Editors." Anastasia Treckles and Helen Jancich of Purdue University at Calumet shared several tools for publishing online that they discovered in part through their students in an Instructional Technology masters degree program.
• SquareSpace (http://www.squarespace.com/): Free for a 14 day trial, SquareSpace has an iPhone/iPad app that allows mobile updating; it can also aggregate data from social networks, and the display adjusts for small screens.
• Google Sites (http://sites.google.com/ ): If you have a Gmail account, you can easily start a free Google site. The interface is not really intuitive, but there are lots of training videos to support the site. Recently, blog functionality has been added, as well as the ability to create forms (linked to Google Docs spreadsheet). Many gadgets are available to add to your site.
• Wix.com (http://www.wix.com/ ) This site offers free flash-based website creation; it give your web designs a more modern look. There are no ads, even on the free version, but a Wix bar appears at the bottom of each page. Because it is flash-based, it won't work on Apple devices, and it may require more virtual memory during editing. These sites are not ADA compatible since reading devices are not supported, so you might want to add a print-off if this is an issue.
• Doodlekit.com (http://www.doodlekit.com/): Doodlekit includes photo album options and blog capabilities, as well as discussion board and shopping cart add-ons for a fee. However, the site appears to have problems on Apple devices, and there are reports of crashes in Firefix and Safari. There are a few ads in the free version.
• Jotform (http://www.jotform.com/ ): Jotform supports the creation of simple forms to collect data; results are emailed to the specified email address. Even the free account allows for the storage of forms you have used.
• Prezi (http://www.prezi.com/ ): This site provides users with the ability to create and store animated presentations by establishing a timeline to focus attentions on images, words, or sentences on each slide. Using the keyword search, users can also view and download shared presentations. There is also a fee-based desktop download that allows offline edition. Selecting the educational use option provides users with free downloading and more storage.
These sites can be used for student portfolios, for storing presentations, for connecting with parents, for organizing events, and even for limited online collaboration. Although some sites offer Web 2.0 features like blogging, these are not social networking sites, and student identities can be protected.
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