My final
vision is finally coming together after a week of struggles and challenges. I
am a very methodical person, and it often takes me a while to get projects started,
as I need to have a clear idea of where I am going before I begin something new.
As I sat down to brainstorm ideas, my head was spinning. I then thought that maybe a great place to
start was to look to see if there were any tips and tricks that anyone could
offer online. I came across a few blog
posts and or articles that I felt
contained some information that would be useful while building my website.
The first blog
post I found highlights the 5 most important things a school library website
should contain. Here is a screenshot from the blog explaining the 5 key points.
I will definitely keep these things in mind, and keep referring to it as I build my website.
The next
article I came across went through questions you need to ask yourself while
creating the website. It highlights the
fact that you have to think in two different ways:
1- you need to think like a librarian,
and
2- you need to think like a web designer
Some of the
key takeaways from this article for me were: make it user friendly, and easy to
navigate, make sure it is accessible to all, and most of all KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Next, I
knew I needed to start looking at website builders and decide on one. I found websites that compared three in
particular: Weebly, Wix and WordPress. Looking at the compare and contrasts
charts, Weebly and Wix seemed to be the easiest to use as they are drag and
drop website builders where no coding knowledge is needed, as opposed to
Wordpress where coding would eventually need to be used (from what I understood,
I could be wrong). I am not very
tech-savvy, and with time constraints, I felt that either Wix or Weebly would
best suit my needs.
Without really
thinking about it, I began creating my website using Weebly, as I knew many of
my colleagues are using it, and therefore figured I would have support should I
need it. After spending hours trying to
create something, I wasn’t fully grasping how to use it. I had added a few pages, but wasn’t liking
the results, nor the templates offered.
I could
have probably asked a colleague to help me, but instead I decided one night to look
further into the Wix website creator. My
immediate thought was: “Wow! This seems to be more my speed.” Even though I had spent so much time using
Weebly, I still decided it would be best to restart using Wix. Although it was a setback, I am very happy I
made the switch, as I feel it is easier to use and exactly what I was looking
for. I was able to do more in two days than I was in four.
That being
said, building a website doesn’t come without its challenges. I have yet to figure out how to embed some
videos I took during an author talk we had this week. For some reason, they are either too large or
take forever to upload. Maybe I am doing
something wrong? I don’t want to have to upload to YouTube (like I did my
tutorials or Powtoon videos) in order to add it to my website. Any other suggestions? I will need to look into this…
My biggest struggle/challenge
to date is figuring out HOW to deliver information in an effective way. I am struggling with menu items, as I feel I
have too many. I have so much information I want to include and share on the
website, but don’t know how to “display” the information effectively. Am I trying to do too much? After all, one
suggestion mentioned above was to keep it simple…
I think what
I need to do this weekend is to take a look at numerous other learning commons
websites to see how they are managing their menus (thank you Julia for
permitting me to look at yours, you have some great ideas!).
Here is a screen shot of my home page:
References
L. (2011, August 9). The Adventures of Library Girl. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from http://www.librarygirl.net/2011/08/5-things-every-school-library-website.html?m=1
Wilbert, D. (n.d.). Best practices in school library website design.
Retrieved from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/969
