GHS 209: Revolutionary Europe and Colonial Nigeria (Ramsbottom): Weebly

Have one member of your group sign up for a Weebly account and create your site. They will invite everyone else later. The first thing you will be asked is to select the focus of your site:

Selecting "Site" will highlight the themes that will work best for your project in the next stage of the process:

Pick a theme for now; you can (and probably will) change your theme later on. Feel free to experiment with different looks, but once you start laying out your site in earnest, you should have settled on a theme.

Enter your team name in the "Subdomain" box. Please do not purchase a new domain for this project. You can change your subdomain at any time.

There will be some existing elements on your site. These vary depending on the theme you select. However, most of the time they include a site title, a page or two, images, header/footer, and a button.

You should be able to click and edit most of these elements. Some editing options may be limited; similarly, some of these elements cannot be deleted from your site. Check the Pages tab for a few layout options. Remember that you can always change to a different theme if you are unhappy with any un-changable elements.

Beyond the existing elements, you should be able to add content to your site. The main things to know about adding content:

1. Weebly allows you to drag and drop elements into the places where you want them to go. So easy!
2. Where you drag and drop is important. If you drag two elements next to each other, it's probably going to create columns. 
3. Changing your mind is okay. If you don't like the way something is laid out, drag it somewhere else. Unlike the existing elements, you can delete these ones if you choose. It's flexible!

Important Note: Any element with a star in the upper left of the box is not available in the free version of Weebly. There are plenty of workaround options - ask Amanda or Franny what's possible.

Below are the elements that we anticipate you using most. Be sure to explore the other options as well (though we don't think you'd want to worry about any of the commerce options) and ask us if you have any questions.

TITLE

• Great for creating subheadings within your page

TEXT

• Pretty self-explanatory. You can insert links within your text to outside URLs or other pages of your website. It doesn't easily allow for hanging indent, so you may want to double-space your references instead.

IMAGE, GALLERY, SLIDESHOW

• Image displays one image on your page. Gallery allows you to display multiple thumbnails of images. Slideshow has several display options, but it also will display multiple photos with one image highlighted at a time.
• When you use the Image option, you can upload an image, insert a URL, or do a search. If you use the Search option and select the Free Photos tab, it will give results that fall under Creative Commons and will automatically place the attribution on your page (in the footer).
• If you upload an image using the Image, Gallery, or Slideshow elements, you will need to add your attribution in the Caption field. Click on your image and select Caption. Insert your text; if you want to display the CC box here, grab the html code from the LibGuide.

EMBED

• Allows you to add anything to your site that offers the embed code!  This includes wordles, infographics, slideshow presentations, videos, etc. 
• Most sites, like YouTube and StoryMaps, will generate the embed code for you. All you need to do is copy the entire thing and paste it into an EMBED box!  Any difficulties beyond this can be referred to Amanda or Franny.

DIVIDER & SPACER

• Give you options for columns and spacing to make your page look visuall appealing

BUTTON

• Great way to link to outside content or other pages.

YOUTUBE

• Easily embed YouTube videos right into your page

BLOCK QUOTE

• A nice way to highlight a sentence or quote to make it stick out from a large chunk of text.

Weebly has tons of themes available for you to use; from the "Design" menu, you can select your theme, fonts, and a background for your site. 

Think about the kinds of content you're going to include when you're selecting a theme--your pages are going to have lots of text and images, so you may not want a background image to to distract from the images you select. Some themes are optimized for people who want to create online stores, but these may not look as good when they're full of your content instead of items for sale.

When selecting a font for your webpage, think about legibility. It's really hard to read large quantities of Handwritten or Decorative font-types online. These are best used sparingly. Think about your audience; what looks authoritative? What looks professional? How are other scholarly sites that you've visited designed? Similarly, when you're selecting colors, make sure there's enough contrast for text to be easily read.

Also, please note that you cannot use a search box -- this is a premium feature. 

You can have a maximum of five pages, so think carefully about how you'd like to organize your site. You probably cannot give everyone in your group their own page.

The pages you create will be added to your site's main navigation. The name you give each page should clearly reflect its content. If you want to reorganize your pages in the navigation or ceate a drop-down menu, the pages can be dragged and dropped.

Whichever page is in the top-most position will be considered the homepage for the site, no matter what name you give it.

You will set the name of your page here, as well as selecting a page layout. You will only want one of your pages (if any) to have the "Landing Page" layout. 

Tall or short headers will help liven up your pages, but are not required. 

All of your pages should be included in the navigation so users of the site can easily access each page and will have an idea about the contents of your site. Please do not password protect your pages at this stage.

You can change your site address at any time.

You want your site title to be short, descriptive, and punchy. 

A mobile-optimized site makes your site more accessible to people who can only access the Internet via a cellphone.

At the end of your project, you will be asked to send a .zip archive of your site to your professor and your librarians.

Now, let's get you guys set up and added to your sites.

If you have questions or need support throughout this project, you have options!

• Contact Franny or Amanda (info on the Home tab)
• Contact Information Commons
  • At the library desk whenever the library is open
  • In the basement of Jordan M-F from 9am to 7pm (4pm on Friday)
  • Via phone, email, or chat
• Use Weebly's online support tools