Blogging with Weebly

Seth Guttenplan is a math and computer technology teacher for special education students in New Jersey. Follow Seth on twitter @sethgutt.

Weebly is a great website for both teachers and students to use for multiple reasons. Weebly can be used to create websites, blogs or digital portfolios.

One reason why I like Weebly so much is their easy to use interface. Students and teachers can drag and drop any items they want on their website or blog. This includes basic items like text or images, as well as maps. Images can be inserted as a single picture, gallery or slideshow. Users can also insert a map, assignment form or contact form. The assignment form allows users to upload a document or file from their computer. Users can use the drag and drop interface to format the layout of their site as well. Users can also insert media like videos or audio - however, these require Weebly Pro, which I will discuss later on. There are many other features you can add to your website, but these are just some of the basics.

Digital Portfolios have become very popular to use in schools and education. They are a great way for students to keep a collection of their work that is easily accessible. Weebly's teacher portal allows an educator to oversee the websites, blogs and digital portfolios. In my school, I made the websites password protected so that strangers can't see the students' work. Each school will have a different policy on who should have access to see the students' websites so modify this for your school's situation. With Weebly's easy to set up pages on your website, students can make each page a different subject or class. Digital Portfolios also help students stay organized with all of their work.

As I mentioned earlier, some features are only available with Weebly Pro. The upgraded version opens certain features like video and audio uploads as well as a search box. Each teacher account comes with 40 student accounts to manage and oversee. Depending on your situation, you may want a lot more than 40 student accounts. Luckily, you can always purchase more student accounts (1 dollar = 1 additional student account). Then again, who wants to spend more money than they have to? No one. Well, if you refer a teacher and they create a website or blog, you will receive 10 dollars towards Weebly Pro or additional student accounts. That's the best deal of them all!