Creating A Classroom Website
The Steps Involved In Creating A Classroom Website
There are several tasks you need to complete before you even begin designing your classroom website. You have to be sure that you know what they are, and have the tools necessary to perform them. Listed below are the different steps in the process that you need to address.
What Is Your District's Policy
The first thing you need to do is find out what your district's policy on web page creation is. There may be a web server controlled by your district where you can "host" your classroom website. If they do, they will probably have rules and regulations governing the publication of content that you will need to adhere to. The pages you create may need to be reviewed by a committee, or you may even have the freedom to publish your pages without having to consult with anyone. It all depends on district policy, and you need to know what that is It's important to know the limits of what you can and cannot do, especially when publishing students' work.
Here (PDF) is an example of the district policy that applies to a particular school
Hosting
"Hosting" simply refers to the web server on which you will publish your website. It's where the web pages live. Hosting usually costs money, though there are plenty of hosts offering free web space. They often display adverts on your pages so that they can make at least some money back. Some free hosts perform quite slowly so that you'll be waiting for a while before web pages load completely in your browser. It's up to you whether you want to put up with the limitations imposed by such free web hosts. If you have a budget to spend, you'll find that you can get a good host for around $5/month. Alternatively, if your school district runs its own web server, you may not have to pay anything - or put up with annoying adverts. Check with your district first.
If you have internet access at home, your account usually comes with some free web space, so you may be able to use that to house your classroom website. Most hosts, be they free or paid for, provide tools to help you create web pages. This is especially useful if you are a novice and don't know HTML.
There follows a list of free web hosts: