Are Weebly Reviews Wobbly?

Website Reviews: Weebly
by Simon Wright
http://www.helium.com/items/1191856-is-the-free-personal-website-creation-service-weebly-any-good

Screen shot of Weebly for Education

This review was written in 2008 and, therefore, does not target the newer educational version of Weebly. However, aside from the class management features for educators with Weebly Educational, the platform itself is the pretty much the same as the original Weebly. This online review did shed more light on the help features than our review. It was clear that the reviewer had invested more time in Weebly than we did, as Wright created his own site on Weebly as opposed to a "trail run." Therefore, his experience with the platform allowed him to comment a bit more on the limitations with the help features. Yet, unlike in our review, Wright does not give any specific details in regard to problems with the help feature like we did. As mentioned in our review, the author does comment on the fact that Weebly is essentially a free service and, for a fee, you can also unlock a few more features that some users might desire. Although not a review directed to educators, Wright does spend some time commenting on the usability of the site, citing how easy the program is to use and explaining some of the features. Unlike our own experience, he does point out some issues in regard to work being lost when the program crashes. Lost work was never an issue when we did a trial run with the platform, but perhaps this issue has been ironed out in the last few years. Wright mentions that one attraction to using Weebly was the range of templates the platform offers. This was also observed in our own experience, and many of our students made positive comments as well when they provided feedback. While the author makes no direct comments on how effective Weebly would be in a learning environment, it is interesting to note that Wright discusses, in his closing remarks, how a website allows a writer to showcase his work. This was also something that many of our students discussed when considering applications for Weebly in their learning environment, and it was also part of our criteria for the evaluation.

Weebly Review
By Erez Zukerman
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/software/3322448/weebly-review/

Considered an "Expert Review"from 2011, this evaluation devotes a lot of time describing the design of the platform and the author explains some of the positive attributes to this design and some of the limitations. The majority of the review focuses on the usability of Weebly. Zukerman also mentions that if the user has some knowledge of HTML and CSS, a custom theme can be be created and a built-in code editor is an available feature. This is an interesting observation and was not explored in our review. Like our review, the review also discusses the fact that Weebly is essentially a free service, but additional features are available for  a price. Unlike our review, Zukerman discusses the ability to work collaboratively on your website with other users. While this is not a review pinpointing the Weebly educational version, this collaborative feature would offer many possibilities in the classroom setting or if students were working with other students from another school, etc. Like our review, the author does suggest other software platforms for web creation, including WordPress. He does stress, however, that Weebly allows the user to produce a product that looks more unique than what is offered with WordPress. Aside from the "Expert Review," readers can also check out "User Reviews" of the software as well as the final verdict on the software, related products and technical specifications. It is interesting to note that none of the related products listed in this review correspond to the alternative software we suggested in our review. Under technical specifications, the software only lists Window operating systems for Weebly. This is an error and was also an issue that came up when we were trying to choose what to select on our own evaluation model. We choose Windows, but, like this review, the selection is misleading because, as a web-based application, it should work on any operating system with a supported browser. We found that Weebly worked poorly in Internet Explorer compared to its performance in Safari on a Macintosh system with OS 10.8.2 or Google Chrome on Windows 7. This issue was not discussed in this review, nor Wright's review.

Weebly Review - The Website Builder that makes Web Design Fun
By Mike Johnston
http://www.cmscritic.com/weebly-review/

Written in 2012, this review focuses completely on usability and has a very engaging approach that includes screen shots from the program as the author discusses the different features that are offered. As specified in our review, Johnston stresses the ease of use of Weebly and how it is a great choice for users who are unfamiliar with HTML, but still want to create a professional looking site. Yet while the author effectively displays the features of Weebly through screenshots, he fails to mention that some of the elements displayed are only available under a monthly payment program. Additionally, Johnston never explores the help features of Weebly, and while he comments on how impressed he was with the speed of Weebly, he never discusses what operating system or browser he used or the technical specifications of his computer. As in the first review, Johnston does discuss the ability to edit the HTML/CSS directly. It is clear through this review that the author loves the features of Weebly and how the platform operates, and he makes that very clear in his concluding remarks. While we also were impressed with Weebly's usability our overall conclusion was not as positive as Johnston's and we also offered alternative software suggestions, which are not included in this review. 

And, finally...

For some reason it would not seem right if I did not include some educators who have discussed Weebly and how they have used it in their classrooms. So while the links below are not formal evaluations of Weebly, they do offer practical suggestions on how Weebly can be used. These are suggestions and observations that mainly originate from actual experiences. I found it difficult to find formal evaluations that looked at the educational version of Weebly. So I think it is only fitting to include a few of many sites that explore how Weebly has been used in the classroom. There is no doubt that the links below will include comments which are very subjective and bias in nature. Yet, I do not think any of the authors, many of whom are also educators, make any claims to objectivity. However, one could argue that a high level of objectivity would be expected from the "expert" reviews situated above. I would argue that this is not always the case, particularly in the last review by Johnston. While both Wright and Zukerman do conclude with overall positive conclusions about Weebly, they do make an effort to point out some shortcomings. This was the same with our own evaluation. However, Johnston's review is blatantly positive, and while I think he did one of the best jobs on not only discussing, but illustrating (through a static page) the ease of use of the platform, he failed to point out some of the limitations and flaws - ones which he himself had to have experienced when using the software. 

Illustration explaining the science behind
Wobbling Weebles (Wikipedia).  

I think, overall, educators would find the three Weebly reviews discussed helpful. However, I did find it interesting that the primary focus of the reviews was on usability. This is, of course, a very important criterion, and gives teachers an idea on how "user friendly" the software is, but other criteria has to be considered when selecting software for a learning environment. To be fair, none of the reviews are for the educational version of Weebly, so while the reviews do offer information that would be helpful to an educator considering this software, ultimately the sites listed below would provide a more practical component, including suggestions on how Weebly can be used with students. It is not unlike one teacher asking another teacher how they used a resource in their teaching methods. Ultimately, software is a resource and the best source for guidance is educators who have already used the software.

Below are the links to discussions about Weebly (many by educators), and the last link, added more for  fun than for any other reason, is an article by Ryan Dube who pokes fun at some reviewers (including Erez Zukerman) and then explores web designs created using the Weebly platform that actually do not "suck." 

Tool of the Month - May 2012
http://www.theconsultants-e.com/resources/ToolsResources/toolmay2012.aspx

Teacher First Review - Weebly
http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=12342

Tales From a 21st Century Teacher
http://wrteacher.wordpress.com/tag/web-design/

Natural History Day and Weebly
http://nhd.weebly.com

Journey of a Science Teacher
http://journeyofascienceteacher.blogspot.ca/2011/07/weebly-for-education.html

Free Technology for Teachers
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/10/weebly-for-education.html#.USmQL6XrbzI

9 Weebly Websites That Actually Don't Suck
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-weebly-websites-suck/