Creating a Website: Introduction to the Basics Dr Janelle Young

Do an Experimental Weebly site I suggest you begin learning how to create a website by constructing an ‘experimental site’. This enables you to try creating new pages and adding different texts, videos, podcasts, maps etc. to your website. Once you gain some competence on this ‘experimental’ site you will be ready to create a website for a specific purpose.

Sign Up to:

Select the Focus of Your Site - (choose site)

Choose this Theme – scroll to select

Create your Website using a Subdomain of Weebly.com

Remember your login details Note: the address you used. your username. your password. Free Weebly websites will have: – [.weebly.com] in the domain name. Paid websites allow you to: – choose you own domain name.

Add a Title to the Homepage Click on the Title (left of the image) and add your Title. You can choose CAPS or Sentence format. Select the colour you want, make it bold etc. etc.

Edit the image on the Homepage Find a suitable image/photograph e.g. from Google images or a personal photograph and save one of these to your computer. Click on Edit image on the Homepage and select ‘Edit image’ Click on Add image (top left hand tool bar). Browse for the image or photograph on your computer. Click SAVE (top right hand toolbar).

How to Save your website during construction At any stage of the website development, save the website by clicking on PUBLISH (top right hand corner).

Create Pages Plan how the information on your website will be organised into sections. ADDING PAGES Click on Pages (top toolbar) Click on ‘Add Page +’ Type the name of the new Page in the space (keep it succinct). Save the new Page by clicking Save/Edit. Remember You can edit the image on each page (same process as the homepage) Additional Pages can be added anytime during construction of the website.

Add a YouTube video Go to the Page where you want to add the YouTube video. Click and drag the ‘YouTube video tile’ on the left hand sidebar to the central area. A sample video will be placed on your site. Browse for the YouTube video that you want to add to your site. Copy the URL (using the keyboard shortcut - Control C) Click on ‘Add and a video to your site’ (top row of the sample video). When the dialogue box appears add the URL to the space provided. Click - Publish (top right hand side) to save the website.

Add a Divider or a Spacer Sometimes as you build a page you wish to gain more space between items e.g. text and a video. If this occurs, you can add a Spacer. Try adding a Spacer to your site: Simply drag the ‘Spacer tile icon’ to your page and place it in the chosen position.

Adding Content to Pages Click and drag any of the tiles located in the sidebar to add content to your website. EXAMPLES Text – enables you to type and format headings, or copy and paste from other documents or sites e.g. Australian Curriculum. File – allows you to upload any file from your computer (i.e. pdf or docx format). Document – inserts a document on the Page from your computer.

Copy a section of a document If you want to place a copy of a section from a document to your website e.g. a copy of a section of the Australian Curriculum do as follows: Click on the ‘Text icon’ and drag it to your selected Page. Click on – ‘click here to edit’ and you can Paste the section of the document to your page.

Experiment with your new website TRY THE FOLLOWING: 1.Create a new Page 2.Add a new image – PUBLISH (to save) 3.Add a Heading using the Text tile (click and drag). Experiment with different fonts and colours for headings. 4.Add a File – by browsing your computer and uploading it.

Check if your Website is saving Make sure you PUBLISH your website and then log out. You can login and continue to edit. Go to: You may be asked to login using your username and password. Once you are in the weebly site you will see all of your websites listed. Click on Edit button to select the one you wish to continue editing. To see your website as a visitor will see it, login to your site by name e.g. www…………weebly.com You can also check if the links are working.

Add a Button Try adding a button. Click on the button tile in the left hand sidebar and drag it to the place where you wish to locate a button. Click on ‘Button Text’ and change the text to suit the site. The style and colour of the button can be changed. Make a link to a URL by adding the URL to the blank section in the new text box.

REMEMBER: If you experiment with a site first you can practise your skills before creating a site for a particular purpose.