Web Tool Comparison

•   How does knowing basic code and being able to insert or tweak code extend the designer's control in a site?

Many websites have options for appearances, but there are never enough options to suite every person. Being able to control the code gives limitless options to designers. They can tweak every little detail about the site from the color and font of the entire site, or just one word. Not everybody needs that much personalization, but if you have the know-how, why not make your site look exactly how you picture it?

•   Evaluate each tool type on the tool's ability to allow users to make choices in text, color, layout, and design.

I absolutely love using Google apps, and Google Sites are no exception. It is very user friendly. You do not need to know code at all in order to use it. But this makes it limiting, like a WordPress site almost, because you have options to choose from and there are a finite amount of choices. There are a few places you can use HTML to personalize things.

Dreamweaver is a really great tool. It uses CSS and HTML5. I love the side by side split view that you can use. That element makes design much easier. There are capabilities to store design information so you can use it again or tweak it later. Like Rebecca, I also found that in Dreamweaver, WordPress themes can be adjusted to your liking. That is a very big selling point for me. While WordPress has lots of free themes, there are always things I would like to change or tweak about them.

Support why you would recommend each tool for both ease of use and its ability to allow code tweaking - hand code insertion.

I do currently recommend all Google Apps to anybody and everybody. It is very user friendly, while still giving you coding options. You can quickly and easily pop out a site with Google Sites.

I would recommend DreamWeaver for people who are well versed in code. It has a lot of options and limitless possibilities when you are writing your own HTML. I would also recommend it for people just learning to code because it is a popular program and there are lots of tutorials and videos and screencasts with help. Whenever you are learning something new it helps to be using a well-known tool. Using this program will produce a site that is not a cookie-cutter replica of hundreds of other sites, like it would be on WordPress or even Google Sites.

Recommend and support your reasoning for which tool you would recommend for 1) a primary school student website on insects and, 2) a high school computer science course.

Like my classmates before me, I would recommend Google Sites for an elementary level site and DreamWeaver for a high school site. While my third graders might be able to handle understanding basic code, they are still learning to type, and getting them to type HTML with no mistakes is giving me a headache just thinking about it. But I know my kids are very capable of creating a Google Site with lots of options. I would even recommend Google Sites for a basic high school website, where the site content was the focus. But for a computer class, Dreamweaver would be much more appropriate. It would provide more of a challenge and force the kids to use code, which I would expect from a computer science course. They would already be familiar with computers and probably basic sites like Google Apps. DreamWeaver would be the next logical step up.