Web site for a school

smullo

Hi All,

My son's school would like a web site to host events, news etc. I would like to give them a basic content management system they can use - so I do not have to be a bottleneck updating HTML for them. I can buy a domain and point that to it.

Are there any such CMS systems in use by schools in Ireland? I assume it is a common need. Or any cheap hosted CMS you can recommend.

Cheers

ChRoMe

smullo wrote: »

Hi All,

My son's school would like a web site to host events, news etc. I would like to give them a basic content management system they can use - so I do not have to be a bottleneck updating HTML for them. I can buy a domain and point that to it.

Are there any such CMS systems in use by schools in Ireland? I assume it is a common need. Or any cheap hosted CMS you can recommend.

Cheers

I knew the answer to this thread before I clicked the title.

Wordpress.

Ludo

School my kids go to use http://www.weebly.com/

KonFusion

Ludo wrote: »

School my kids go to use http://www.weebly.com/

I'd strongly recommend nobody ever use weebly.

Wordpress should suit fine, and it's free.

Ludo

KonFusion wrote: »

I'd strongly recommend nobody ever use weebly.

Wordpress should suit fine, and it's free.

Any particular reason why?

It looks sh*t but is there a particular reason for the strong advice not to use it.

LowOdour

KonFusion wrote: »

I'd strongly recommend nobody ever use weebly.

Wordpress should suit fine, and it's free.

Id recommend Wordpress too. If you are not interested in creating your own design, there are plenty of free and non-free templates.

Heard of weebly before, but never used it? Why do you not recommend it?

Sparks

smullo wrote: »

Or any cheap hosted CMS you can recommend.

Sorry folks, but this part of the OP's question is banned by the charter. Talking about the CMS software choices is cool; hosting is not. Just in case we head down that route.

KonFusion

LowOdour wrote: »

Heard of weebly before, but never used it? Why do you not recommend it?

Ludo wrote: »

It looks sh*t but is there a particular reason for the strong advice not to use it.

Because it's **** :pac:

I kid. Actually I jumped the gun. I was thinking of Wix, not Weebly. Either way, I find all WYSIWYG site maker things to be crap. Though Squarespace isn't so bad.

Regarding wordpress,there are tutorials all over the net, youtube etc to assist with pretty much anything you need. The wordpress community forums (and many others) are full of info, and if they get a budget down the line and would like to expand upon and improve the site, there's a tonne of folks out there available to them. Using weebly will completely restrict them.

Full disclosure: I'm generally bias towards open source vs proprietary platforms.

ChRoMe

Sparks wrote: »

Sorry folks, but this part of the OP's question is banned by the charter. Talking about the CMS software choices is cool; hosting is not. Just in case we head down that route.

Dare I ask why? Is blackknight a sponsor of boards or something?

Sparks

ChRoMe wrote: »

Dare I ask why? Is blackknight a sponsor of boards or something?

We used to have an entire forum dedicated to hosting. It got... hairy. I don't think we even have the inactive forum up anymore. Suffice to say that we just don't go near the topic anymore.

smullo

Thanks for the advice so far. I have used WordPress and found it a bit clunky. I want something absolutely simple so that the guys who need to use it call me about issues as little as possible. Weebly seems simple so I think I will look at that as an option. Cheers.

boobar

I've used both weebly and WordPress....

WordPress wins hands down in my view...

Some great YouTube tutorials out there as well

GetWithIt

There is already a hosting service provided for all schools available at the Scoilnet site:

http://www.scoilnet.ie/yourQuestions_WebhostingBlogging.shtm

If you buy a domain and associated hosting you will be simply adding a cost to the school when the Department has already funded an equivalent service.

Here is a sample site from a school:

http://ballonns.scoilnet.ie/blog/

AnCatDubh

Tumblr + free template + yourdomain pointed to it. (or buy a template that you like the look of for a few bucks)

Set it up, hand them over the login and have them pay the domain renewal fee each year (or hold the login and just give their individual tumblr accounts appropriate access to update).

Zero setup and zero hosting (that we're not allowed discuss eitherways).

If considering this, the free effector theme is particularly configurable. Or dive in and get your hands dirty and modify a basic theme.

daymobrew

GetWithIt wrote: »

There is already a hosting service provided for all schools available at the Scoilnet site:

http://www.scoilnet.ie/yourQuestions_WebhostingBlogging.shtm

If you buy a domain and associated hosting you will be simply adding a cost to the school when the Department has already funded an equivalent service.

My son's school moved from scoilnet.ie to their own hosting. WordPress on scoilnet.ie was very limited - could only install a few plugins from a fixed list and choose from a few themes, with no ability to customise them. Also, they are still on WordPress 3.3.1 (released Jan 2012) - latest is 3.6.1 (released Sept 2013).

We have so much more control on our own hosting - I can write site plugins and create child themes. For 60 or so euro for the hosting I think it is worth it.

GetWithIt

daymobrew wrote: »

My son's school moved from scoilnet.ie to their own hosting. WordPress on scoilnet.ie was very limited - could only install a few plugins from a fixed list and choose from a few themes, with no ability to customise them. Also, they are still on WordPress 3.3.1 (released Jan 2012J) - latest is 3.6.1 (released Sept 2013).

We have so much more control on our own hosting - I can write site plugins and create child themes. For 60 or so euro for the hosting I think it is worth it.

I know it's only a relatively small sum but I would have thought the better approach would have been for the school to feed back into Scoilnet that they needed to upgrade to the newer version of Wordpress. Jan 2012 isn't that out of date. I suspect Scoilnet only do updates outside of the school year and so are always a few versions behind.

I don't know how many schools there are but ICT is such a common function. When it has been provided centrally it seems somewhat, ehm, well silly to implement your own solution and incur the associated costs. (say 1000 schools - 1000 x 60 = the cost of a teacher)

If you're doing that much customisation you're most likely creating maintenance issues for yourself in the future.

I don't want to rain on the efforts of the individuals involved, but I would have thought if they simply leveraged the facilities provided centrally and then focused their time on specific solutions, rather than the underlying infrastructure, that they could achieve even more with their limited resources- both time and money.

By the way, I have absolutely no association with Scoilnet or whatever provider they are using. I am aware of the site through a separate piece of work I was involved in.

ChRoMe

GetWithIt wrote: »

I know it's only a relatively small sum but I would have thought the better approach would have been for the school to feed back into Scoilnet that they needed to upgrade to the newer version of Wordpress. Jan 2012 isn't that out of date.

In fairness the best part of years is pretty out of date, considering security issues.