Good starting point for website design (for students & teachers alike)!
Community Review for Weebly
My Take
Weebly is a really great way to dive into web design without having to learn any design languages (like HTML). It allows you to create your own pages as a teacher, but also makes it easy for students to create on their own. Students can jump right into a pre-made template or tweak the design as needed. Users get an idea for the options and limitations that come with creating a web site--for FREE! If you choose to use the "education" option, you only get a limited number (10, I believe) of student accounts, so a cost will probably be involved, but having control over the student publishing may be worth it. There is no limit to how you might use this tool (classroom, club sites, parent updates, posting homework, etc.). Parents are excited to see their student doing web-based work, it's easy for a teacher to organize, and students get to learn with digital tools. I definitely feel Weebly is a win for all parties involved!
How I Use It
Weebly is approved by my district for our teacher/class pages, so I host my main site there. I have also used Weebly with computer courses to show students how to create their own websites, specifically portfolios of their academic and extracurricular work. The basic layout makes it easy for all to use. Students caught on quickly and had pages they could publish within a single class period. Weebly also does a nice job of providing verbal cues when you are a new user. That being said, Weebly does have glitches at times. It has come a long way in the last few years, though. I have noticed there are far fewer issues than there used to be, which is testament to Weebly's development team. I have students who used Weebly to help their parents create sites, some who still update their pages each year (although they are no longer in a class that requires it), and others who have used their Weebly knowledge to create other sites based on their interests (fan pages, blogs, etc.).