Wordpress email

Hello!

There are tons of great website resources available out in cyberspace, and Wordpress is a great tool.        Wordpress.com is the site I would recommend you use over Wordpress.org.

    The .com site has free hosting, but your name will be at wordpress.com, which doesn’t always put off a good impression. There are tons of templates, but they aren’t customizable. (I think that is totally fine for a classroom site, but some people want more control.) You can put in lots of tabs and different pages. You can add hyperlinks and widgets and all sorts of pre-made goodies. There are options you can adjust for a cost. There is a cost for customizing your design, and for having your own domain name without the wordpress attached. You can take advertisements off for a price and add videos for a price as well. It all can add up pretty fast.  

    On the flip side, the .org is completely customizable. There is an initial cost associated with it, but you get what you pay for. You can adjust the code and adjust the theme and all the plug-ins. In my opinion, it has too many features for what teachers need. The publishing capabilities are similar to any other blog site, but can easily be transformed into a static website. All of that part is free, but you would then have to pay for the hosting. When you pay for hosting you get to pick your domain name. And overall the site will look very professional. Again, almost more professional than we need it to look as teachers. I’m not saying teachers don’t need to be professional, but we work with kids. I use the comic sans and chalkboard fonts all I want and am not judged for it. We have to have a little kid/creative side.

    There are lots of advantages to using Wordpress. It is fairly customizable and inexpensive. It’s pretty user friendly and you can do a lot with it. Another advantage is that is it well known and used. There are lots of tutorials and reviews and youtube how-tos out there about Wordpress. Like any other website it just needs some time to be explored and figured out.

    The biggest disadvantage I see to using Wordpress is that unless you are willing to pay (I know you have all that extra money laying around since you’re a teacher) there are going to be advertisements and lots of extra stuff floating around the site. That may be an issue if you are planning on having students on your site. It isn’t secure or password protected like some other sites specifically designed for school are.  

    I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if you have any others or want help setting up a website! Thanks so much!

Christie Cutshall
Instructional Technologist
Prospect Ridge Academy