Websites like Weebly really do make my heart sing. They are websites that are easy to use, functional and available to anyone with an internet connection. They make website building accessible to people who haven’t ventured into the scary world of coding. I have had experience with other websites such as Wix and Squarespace to build portfolios, blogs and official websites. I have also built my own websites from scratch (with a lot of help from a very IT savvy friends) but I still think that websites like Weebly are amazing. For the sake of this post, I’m going to focus on the use of Weebly as a blog, although it also has the addition of static pages and the option to embed your own code to customise, meaning you can transform your Weebly site into anything you like. Simply, Weebly is extremely easy to use. You choose a theme (either from the ones that are available or you can make your own) and then you customise your website to your hearts content. The simple drag and drop tool makes it easy to arrange your blog how you want it, with additions of contact pages, galleries, image slideshows, media and ecommerce make the blog easily editable. It is simple to included content from other parts of the internet such as YouTube videos, hyperlinks and the addition of images into blog posts. You can edit the privacy settings as well as set multiple authors Blogs are an amazing tool in the classroom. They don’t have to be academic writing and can give the students their own voice without being afraid of following a specific criterion. It can encourage design thinking and well as interaction, encouragement and feedback. It opens the students to a global community and view. Blogs are a perfect way to incorporate literacy across the curriculum (Pappas, 2017). Weebly gives the author of the website access to simple functions, but websites like this can be taken even further, dependant on the knowledge. In my own art practise I created an interactive website with my artwork displayed. I was working with a web developer and together we ended up creative a completely isolated website, we began by putting code into Squarespace (which is a similar set up to Weebly). You can see below a screen recording of the interactive website, which I wanted to include to open up the opportunity to expand on a simple website into something more. Technology can be a tool to expand out minds and our skills as student teachers. There is a video in one of my earlier reflections that expands on this (Reflections 1.1). Of course, as with any web spaces and education there are legal, safety and ethical implications in creating a blog. Privacy settings can be altered to help create the appropriate environment. While embedding videos and images the original authors need to be kept in mind, and often it is easy to reference or link to the original source location, which can help abide by current copyright laws. Specifically looking at the teaching area of Visual Arts and the SAMR model blogs can be a great tool in the classroom: Substitution In the case of research for a project, the student can research online, rather than in physical books, reading other blogs and commenting on them and take notes that they post on their blog (rather than writing in their note books). Augmentation The student could keep a blog online with their research, ideas and inspirations for their physical project, instead of (or as well as) keeping a physical artist diary. The comments section can be a tool for interaction and feedback between students. Modification Students could create an online portfolio on their Weebly blog. This opens them up to an online art community and can encourage global involvement. Redefinition Students can create new content online in the form of artworks. Technology and the internet create infinite horizons. Example: The student could study code in the terms of creating an interactive website to present their artwork. References: Pappas, C. (2017). How To Use Blogs In the Classroom - eLearning Industry. eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/how-to-use-blogs-in-the-classroom
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June 2017
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