Friday, January 30, 2009

Friday's Answer: Creating a Web Site

What are good tutorials on web site creation?
One of the first and most important tasks for a homeschool group is connecting its members. Today, most people connect by the computer.

The benefits of having a web site for your group are many:
* way of sending announcements
* keeping a calendar
* posting photos
* building a sense of community when you're not physically meeting together
* keeping track of members
* providing chat rooms/chat topics
* printing out online forms from home
* automating messages or reminders
* taking polls
* advertising your group

You've got options when it comes to creating a web site. Several of these following suggestions we make we have used ourselves and are a good place to start you on your web site way.

Build a simple group web site for free at:
groups.yahoo.com
meetup.com

To build a more in-depth web site using helpful and attractive templates:
homeschool-life.com (If you sign up with Homeschool-Life, please let them know we referred you to them. Thank you!)
homestead.com

If you are an adventurous techie, consider building a from-scratch site with the aid of the software Dreamweaver or Front Page. There are tons of tutorials out there on YouTube. Also, for these softwares, you will need a web hosting company such as GOT Hosting to put your site online.

These are some great leads for you to research and explore. Let your creative juices start flowing!

We'll see you online!
Kristen & Denise
www.homeschoolgroupleader.com
Check out our recommended resources.

4 comments:

Stacy and David said...

Our group uses homeschool-life and loves it! It is owned & created by a homeschool dad who is very helpful. There are hundreds of other HS groups who use his service. It is free of advertising! Best of all, there is a special support group for homeschool group leaders who need technical help setting up their sites and advice on the issues their group is having. Wonderful place!

Carol Topp, CPA said...

Our homeschool co-op uses www.1and1.com for web hosting. It costs us $3.99 a month. 1and1.com also has a nice website builder so it's easy to create websites.

These were all created with 1and1.com's (free) website builder.

Mason Homeschool Co-op

CarolToppCPA.com

HomeschoolCo-ops.com

See the variety you can have?

Anonymous said...

I can definitely agree that a website is a great thing for a support group/co-op. I personally chose to have a web designer do a site. I felt this gave us more of an opportunity to create an identity and be different than the others. We do updates on the website that pertain to the co-op throughout the year. I find, though, that emailing my families is an even better form of communication. However, when families want general info it is great to send them there to get a good working knowledge of the group...and then it creates specific questions to be asked in the 'hunting' process. Lastly, because we are such an internet driven society we must realize that families often scour the internet for support groups and co-ops. This creates the first glance a family has of your group. The more professional and sharp it is means the better first impression.

Kristen and Denise said...

Mindy,

We've seen your web site. It does have a very attractive, professional look that is inviting and warm to people surfing the net or considering joining your co-op. Thanks for sharing this with all of us.

Kristen & Denise