Analysis of Authoring Tools

Analysis of Authoring Tools: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Best Uses Genevieve K. White Saginaw Valley State University

Analysis of Authoring Tools

The intent of this paper is to discern the differences between web authoring tools, discuss their benefits and drawbacks, and draw a conclusion as a consumer as to which tools will be most beneficial in which situations. The web authoring tools researched include Edline, Weebly, Teacher Web, School Notes, and School Rack. Each of these web authoring tools enables the user to create content with ease, and without the requirement of computer code knowledge. These sites differ in their ability to deliver a user-friendly experience with web content, as well as in the type of content they are designed to create. Discussion will follow on each of these sites, and their most beneficial aspects. The first piece of software under discussion is edline.com. This is a blackboard-affiliated website that has come to own both School World and Teacher Web under the umbrella of the Blackboard company. This website offers a great many number of features and advantages to teachers and districts. This site offers web page resources for districts, schools, classrooms, and groups. This is the most allinclusive of all sites investigated in that it attempts to incorporate all levels of school function into one succinct location. Features included in the purchase of this service include mass-notifications from teacher to students or parents vial phone, email, and text options. The sites offered to teachers combine CMS features such as web design and editing with LMS features such as a grade book, quizzes, and homework. The sites claim is that The LCMS connects all the diverse groups that make up your entire
learning community - from the district and school level to classrooms, clubs, teams, boards, alumni and committees - so that everyone can collaborate and communicate safely and effectively (Edline.com). This approach of a single platform that will include all stakeholders and members of the community is a unique one, and is the largest most all-encompassing attempt provided by any of the sites under investigation to manage all the stakeholders and their needs.

The strengths of this software include the mass of features available to the administrator of the pages: a notification system to send information directly to parents contacts, a homework drop -box where assignments can be posted and submitted, quiz and test generation components, reports on student work that has been completed online, and online storage. The ease of use and professional appearance are

Analysis of Authoring Tools

greatest selling points for this technology. Because it is a large company, it also offers the best amount of training and support to teachers. The weakness of this technology is that it is a Community Management
System, which means that one cannot simply buy a subscription for their classroom; rather, the district or some larger entity must invest in the service, and then allow the members of the district to create their own pages. Another drawback is thatthough it was impossible to find specific financial informationit is likely a hefty monetary investment to enable all users in a district to have the resources available. A good use for this service would be for the entire district to adopt Edline, in conjunction with subscriptions to Blackboard, and require all their educators to make use of the pages. This would be an excellent, congruent, understandable way for parents and students to follow their teachers and classes outside of the classroom. Rather than chasing down different teachers through different hosts, parents could go to one site and manage all of their childrens daily academic life with ease. This product would best serve a district that is trying to foster or repair communication with parents and the community. Examples of good use for districts can be found at http://www.edline.com/services/design/design-portfolio/ The second item under analysis is Weebly.com. This is a website-generation service that is free of charge. It is mostly usurped by small businesses and individual people such as educators. The claim on the Weebly.com home page is For the easiest, most powerful, and affordable website-building experience.

This motto helps to highlight the ease of use, the intuitive nature, and the accessibility of the product. The features offered through Weebly.com include the seamless incorporation of multimedia features, professional themes to choose from, blogging capabilities, and traffic statistics for the site. The greatest strength of Weebly.com is its ease of use. According to the Weebly.com site, Content elements (like text, photos, maps, and videos) are added to your website by simply dragging & dropping them into place. Text is edited just like in a word processor. Building your website is done in real time, right from within your web browser. The easily-understood interface enables even the most inexperienced of users to create a professional-looking, content-rich website. Another strength of Weebly.com is the creative expression it allows. Weebly.com has many multimedia resources available

Analysis of Authoring Tools

that are not available at other sites, including interactive maps, photos, audio players, and videos. These beneficial elements enable the creator of the website to better express themself, and to create a page that is more visually interesting and appealing. The ability of the Weebly site to enable its users to create multimedia-rich products is an important one. The only weakness I could identify within this site is that it is too easy to use! Because the user is not expected to do anything except choose the options, the options are limited and the user cannot create as much or be as specific about the design choices as one can on other sites. A good use for Weebly.com is for any individual looking to create a multimedia-rich personal site. The use of greatest importance to me is for educators to create individual pages the way they wish to. Educators can include any design element they like, arrange it how they desire, and incorporate any information they find important. Educators can also upload documents such as lesson plans and homework assignments. Weebly also has the capability of providing services for schools and districts, but I believe the service is more suited to personal needs, without any unifying factor. The best use for Weebly is for first-time web page creators who want an easy and self-explanatory platform with which to create their site. The best use also includes teachers or other users who are familiar with multimedia elements, and would like to incorporate them into their site. An example of good use for Weebly would be http://cnapolitano.weebly.com/. TeacherWeb is the third site of study. It is the most teacher-friendly of the sites investigated because it offers teacher extras such as clip art, a word-search creator, a teacher schedule, class calendar, blogs, a quiz maker, a fundraiser page, and even a webquest database. The intention of the site is to create a teacher webpage with ease, guided by the program. The result is the successful production of a personal webpage. This site is geared more towards the teacher than the student, parent, or other stakeholders. It is also only available for individual web pages; not district or school groupings. If interested in creating a school or district site, the page automatically re-directs the user to the Edline website, discussed previously.

Analysis of Authoring Tools

The strengths of this site are that it offers a plethora of teacher extras that will help the teacher not only manage their website, but to create content as well. Another strength is the ease of use and understandable user interface. Additional strengths include the amount of educators using the site 100,000 customers in 90 countrieswhich is a testament to the easy-to-use creation tools and success level of the pages. The site also offers a teachers lounge and tutorial videos which make the product even more enticing. The weaknesses of TeacherWeb include that it comes at a cost: $39 a year. Also, the sites are not as graphic-rich or media-friendly as other sites. Creativity is limited by the site because it does not boast video and audio as a site like Weebly does. The best use for TeacherWeb is for a teacher who wants not only a website, but a support community for teachers. The good use for TeacherWeb is for a teacher who is willing to invest a small amount of money in order to receive content-creation tools, a forum, a webquest service, and a competent website that is easy to create. An example of a good use is the demo site from TeacherWeb: http://teacherweb.com/AK/Appleton/Applebee/apt2.aspx. The fourth item investigated was Schoolnotes.com. The motto for Schoolnotes.com is Teachers, Parents, and Students on the Same Page. This site offers a tab each for teachers, students, and parents, and does indeed unify the three invested parties with one site. Schoolnotes is a free service where users can post text, clip art, announcements, and assignments as well as some limited multimedia items. It is cited as a FREE school-to-home communications tool rather than a website creation vehicle. I envision this product as not a website authoring tool, but more of a notice board where teachers post bits of information that are relevant to the classroom, and that parents read but do not interact with. The strengths of Schoolnotes include that it is friendly to parents, teachers, and students. The site is exceedingly easy to use: Just open, type, and save. This is by far the most simplistic tool investigated for the purposes of this report, and therefore is also the easiest for creators to use. Schoolnotes is also a

Analysis of Authoring Tools

free service which has no affiliations with other, bigger conglomerates such as edline (this lack of affiliation has proven to be rare!). In my opinion, the weaknesses of Schoolnotes far outweigh the benefits. There is an excess of advertisement all over the page, presented in a format which is confusing to the user who may mistake the advertising content as part of the website. The site is one-way communication only: Teacher-to-student or teacher-to parent. There is no place for the visitors to the site to provide feedback, interact, contact the teacher, or ask questions. One weakness which seemed to be prevalent on all the sites within this domain is that it produces a great wall of text: the formatting is lacking in creating paragraphs, individual text boxes, columns, etc. so the text comes in one long stream without differentiation. This leads to a site that is overwhelming and difficult to interpret for the user. The ease of use which was beneficial to the site also leads to a simplistic page with few style elements. Additionally, I found that there was an excess of outdated sites through this service, which suggests that the tool is not entirely functional for the everyday needs of the classroom. The good use for Schoolnotes.com would be for a teacher that would like an electronic medium to communicate daily classroom workings to parents. Essentially, using Schoolnotes.com best serves as an electronic letter home, instead of making copies and sending them home with students. This is best for the teacher who would like to post-and-go and is not concerned with creating links to other pages within their own site, and is not concerned with stylistic elements and user functionality. An example of a good use for this site can be found at http://new.schoolnotes.com/xpages/view/52934. The final authoring tool under investigation is SchoolRack.com. The websites claim is Build colorful, customizable websites featuring your own rich content, calendar, files, clip art, and more. No technical knowledge is required! This site boasts the greatest amount of features for a free site: it allows teachers to post assignments to student accounts, collect assignments in the teacher account, and report grades afterwards. It provides discussion boards, student private messaging, and the ability to post

Analysis of Authoring Tools

homework, class notes, and pictures. This site also provides functionality for the student: there are discussion boards for students, students can keep track of multiple teachers in one location, and they can conduct private communications with the instructor. This is the most comprehensive of all sites with the exception of the subscription service through edline.com. The benefits of SchoolRack are that the website produced can include visually-enticing content as well as rich content. It allows the submission and processing of assignments from student to teacher and vice versa. It is much more student-friendly than most of the sites investigated in that it offers tools not only for teachers, but also for the students who use the sites. The site makes it easy for teachers to create useful websites, and is easy for the user to navigate. The results are very professional looking. The content is easy to organize in an understandable way through this site as well: It is designed so that the content comes across to the user well-organized. The weaknesses of SchoolRack are few as far as Im concerned. I found the sites to be textheavy and lacking in graphics and multimedia items: though the functions are available, they are not as easily implemented as in other sites. SchoolRack is user-friendly, but is not as well organized and understandable as a site such as Weebly. The good use for SchoolRack is for teachers who want to create a useable, collaborative website that allows students to interact with the teacher. The ideal user would then have to check the site and update it regularly. The ideal user would need to be prepared to invest some time in creating working links with accessible content. An example of good use for SchoolRack can be found at http://www.schoolrack.com/mrsforster/. Upon investigation of these five websites, I have found Weebly.com to be the most useable, interactive, visually pleasing, well-organized site available. Despite the enticements of teacher-centered websites with additional content features, it seems that Weebly allows the user to perform all of the functions of teacher-based websites, and that if I would like a test generator, wordsearch creator, etc. I can

Analysis of Authoring Tools

incorporate those into my site on Weebly. I dont have a need for many of the additional features and content offered by teacher websites, and would like to keep the content of my website simple and straightforward, while being incredible easy to use. Weebly is the best tool to enable me to do this.

Analysis of Authoring Tools

References

Brown, J. (2012). Mrs. brown's brainy bunch. Retrieved from http://new.schoolnotes.com/xpages/view/52934 Edline. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.edline.com/ Excellence in design. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.edline.com/services/design/designportfolio/ Forster, T. (2012). Mrs. forster. Retrieved from http://www.schoolrack.com/mrsforster/ Mrs. applebee. (2009, April 17). Retrieved from http://teacherweb.com/AK/Appleton/Applebee/apt2.aspx Napolitano, C. (2012). Memorable math with ms. napolitano. Retrieved from http://cnapolitano.weebly.com/ Schoolnotes.com. (1998). Retrieved from http://www.schoolnotes.com Schoolrack. (2003). Retrieved from http://www.schoolrack.com Teacherweb. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.teacherweb.com Weebly inc.. (2012). Retrieved from http://education.weebly.com/