Are you a teacher? Planning to create a classroom website for your class but don’t know how to get started? Don’t worry, this post is going to make you familiar with some excellent platforms that you can use to create a professional-looking classroom website or blog. But before that, let’s find out why should you invest in quality web hosting to ensure the success of your website.
Reliable web hosting is a critical part of building a website. If you want to create a classroom website that is available 24 hours to your students, no matter from where it is being accessed, you should definitely invest in a quality web server.
Website downtime is directly associated with the loss in revenue. Moreover, if your website is under attack because of poor levels of security, students will be unable to access your website precisely. So, it is crucial that you look for the right web hosting even before choosing the website building platform.
Finding the right web host can be a time-consuming process, especially if you are new to the website building. To save your time, it is advisable that you research about some reputable web hosts of the industry. You can take help of blogs and websites that especially review web hosting companies and offer tested hosting review. It will help you find out which hosting company is popular what they are offering.
Tips for choosing the right web hosting company
-Do some research on the market reputation of your potential hosting providers.
-Determine your hosting needs, it will help you choose the right hosting server out of options like a shared server, VPS server, dedicated server.
-Look into cybersecurity measures of your potential provider.
-Have a look at scalability options and infrastructure.
Top 5 Platforms to Create a Classroom Website
1. WordPress
The reason why WordPress is on the 1st position in this list is that it is counted among the most user-friendly website building platforms. According to a survey, WordPress is used by 32.9% of all the websites.
To build a website with WordPress, you will need to pay for your domain name and web host, WordPress itself is free to download, activate and use. WordPress supports a wide range of templates and themes that you can choose according to your business niche. To create a classroom website, you can go for themes like Academica Pro, Divi, Javelin,Education and WP, School.
WordPress also supports a myriad of plugins that you can install to offer your users different features and functionality.
2. Joomla
Joomla has been used by some very prominent companies such as MTV, Harvard University, etc. The platform has a large community of active developers. It wouldn’t be that difficult to find the tutorial on how to build a website with Joomla.
Joomla supports tons of plugins and add-ons that allow you to extend the functionality of your website. Some of the popular Joomla themes which can be used for building a classroom website are JM Education, JSN Educo, etc.
3. Drupal
If you want to create a classroom website that is highly secured, you can go for Drupal CMS. The platform has been used by a number of highly-profile organizations including Sony Music, Popular Science, the New York Observer, etc.
If you’re not tech savvy, hire a professional who has years of experience in working with Drupal. The platform has a very active community having a number of IRC channels and forums. In addition to this, there is also community-generated documentation which is updated and improved from time to time. This documentation has everything all you need to know about building a website, Drupal Installation, designing themes, etc.
Drupal has more than 6 thousand add-ons which you can use to extend the functionality of your website. Today, a large number of companies are offering commercial support for Drupal, so building a classroom website would not be difficult for you.
4. Google Sites
Google Sites is a free website builder from Google that lets you create a classroom website without using any coding. The builder is part of Google’s G Suite that is a premium package. It offers a free 14 day trial for those who want to check it out. After that, they charge $5 per month for their Basic plan offering 30GB storage.
Google Sites has a lot of templates designed for classroom websites. Moreover, you can add numerous gadgets such as maps, spreadsheet, and presentations to make your website more functional.
Working with Google Sites is quite easy, you just need to choose a theme and customize it according to your business.
Weebly for Education is another good platform to create a classroom website developed by Weebly. It has been designed keeping the requirements of teachers and educators in mind. It offers a managed and protected environment for students. You get the full control over the activities of your students.
Adding pictures, videos, audio players, maps, etc. is quite easy with this platform.
There are numerous platforms available in the market that allow users to create a classroom website, these are a few which are widely accepted and support a variety of features needed by a classroom website.