Mobilegeddon is here. In February earlier this year, Google announced that any sites that aren’t mobile-friendly will find their search rank plummet from April 21st, making it extremely difficult to find your site if it isn’t readable on mobile. It comes as very little surprise to anyone keeping an eye on website traffic over the past few years, nearly 60% of all internet browsing is now done from a mobile or tablet, which is why Google is now making it a top priority. This is something that schools need to fix if they want their site to remain in the top hits in Google.

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With the rise of tablets and smartphones there’s also been the rise of buggy mobile websites, unresponsive buttons and pages that just won’t load on tablets. With such a variety of browsers and products comes concerned website owners, who just don’t know the best solution for an easy-to-use interface.
Responsive Website Design, (RWD) and Adaptive Website Design, (AWD) share the goal of solving these problems, but they use very different approaches.

Responsive website design

Responsive websites use CSS3 to create a website that responds to the device it’s on. This gives the site the ability to adapt, with text and images resizing to fit the screen. These websites are great examples of responsive design:

• https://morehazards.com
• https://thisismadebyhand.com/
• This one! Try resizing the window and see hot the site shifts and moves to respond.

Adaptive website design

Adaptive websites feature a series of static layouts, which are based on breakpoints for different screens. Adaptive websites do not respond fluidly, like responsive websites, but detects the device prior to loading and calls up the correct resolution. The following links are examples of adaptive websites:

• https://ia.net/
• https://teixido.co/

	Positives	Negatives
Responsive Website Design	Responds to all screen resolutions, whilst holding consistency. Can be efficiently managed, with a single set of hyperlinks. Increased visibility in search engines.	Resolutions may lead to site distortion. Takes longer to create. May not be as cost effective in certain circumstances.
Adaptive Website Design	Pixel perfect control Every relevant resolution designed for. Directed towards desktop computers, tablets and smart phones	May lack consistency and flexibility across platforms. May suffer with layout from design choices and browsers May not be extensive testing across obscure platforms

So what should we take away from this? Well, responsive website design may lend itself to a less formal and minimalistic format, perhaps with a focus on arts or retail, whereas adaptive design may be more applicable to a more formal site, where a customer’s interests may lie in text-dense or informative articles.
Using these methods will ensure that you can rely on your site being visited and used effectively across devices and screen resolutions, whilst retaining customer satisfaction with a positive experience for user.

If you’d like to learn more, check out these sites:

• • https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2014/05/responsive-vs-adaptive-webdesign-which-is-best-for-you/

• https://blog.catchpoint.com/2014/07/16/adaptive-vs-responsive-web-design-quantifying-difference/
• https://blog.wphub.com/pros-cons-responsive-adaptive-designs/
• https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2014/05/responsive-vs-adaptive-webdesign-which-is-best-for-you/
• https://www.mediumwell.com/responsive-adaptive-mobile/
• https://blog.catchpoint.com/2014/06/02/adaptive-vs-responsive-web-design-right-site/
• https://managewp.com/5-reasons-why-responsive-design-is-not-worth-it
• https://www.isadoradesign.com/blog/benefits-of-responsive-web-design/

 

It’s in the news at the moment that British children spend more time on homework than most other European nations, and while we, at Webanywhere, are all for the high educational standards this produces, we have to ask the question of whether or not this time is being used effectively. With our suite of apps on the School Jotter platform, we can make the task of homework more efficient, productive and even fun! We’ve included the ways our apps can help out below, and all these apps are available for trial in the School Jotter app store, or you can request a demo here.

Portfolio

With our Portfolio app, it’s simple for students to create their own online learning journeys, in order to create a digital roadmap of their work. The simple, easy-to-use interface (which will be familiar to anyone who has used our Site platform to build their website) lets students and teachers add text, images and other media to create an attractive, interactive display. Teachers can set work to be completed online, then leave comments on pieces, giving quick feedback. As well as this, parents are able to log in and see what their children have been doing, giving a bit or parental oversight to the whole process.

Find out more about our Portfolio app or request a free demo here

Learn

Consider this the staff-side version of the Portfolio app. As a teacher you can create Learning Sites within the school website. These act like real websites but are accessible only by pupils and teachers, and content such as lesson plans and homework can be uploaded and displayed. Combining this with our other apps will really help to streamline your homework process.

Find out more about our Learn app or request a free demo here

Blog

Promote social collaboration with your students through our Blog app. Anyone who’s used a blog before will be instantly familiar with how this works – both students and teachers can create blogs and posts, as well as comment on them. Let your students take their group work online and collaboratively produce great content. Particularly good blogs can be shared or posted elsewhere – an added incentive to perform well!

Find out more about our Blog app or request a free demo here

Spellings

Coming soon from Webanywhere is our Spellings app! One of the most universally set pieces of homework in Primary Schools is the spelling test revision. As with any list memorisation there are various ways that each child might go about committing the information to memory, but we think our spelling app will help to make this both simple and fun. Easily create spelling lists for your pupils and embed the app into your school website for access at home. Users are shown a word briefly then asked to spell it out again – the gamification of revision in this way can really take the strain out of homework.

Find out more about our Spellings App here

Now that we have worked out the different guises of the tech savvy teacher we are asking ourselves what does Webanywhere do to support that teacher? So the same headings will appear, just as they did in the last blog post, with how we support you.
Your students read your blog
We lead by example here, we have several blogs attracting very different types of audience. We work with different sectors in and outside of education and recognise that their needs are different. So giving you all the same advice is not an option. Blogging is a great way to communicate in a non-invasive way for us and you respond very well to that.
In School Jotter we have created a blog app that allows everyone to write and have their work published on the internet. The blog app is easy to use and what’s more, schools enjoy writing their blogs and receiving comments.

The blogging facility within an open-source LMS is a popular part of many schools VLE. Whether it is a teacher’s blog or a student’s blog it is a great way to keep in touch with students in between tutor group times or lessons.
You instigate your own CPD online
At Webanywhere we enjoy being proactive and it is very much encouraged by the senior management. So we are starting to offer free webinars offering support on using various parts of your school’s VLE or apps in the School Jotter suite. All webinars are recorded and posted online for those who cannot make the webinar live or would like to go over the information again at a later date.
We also hold regular events around the country for e-safety, OFSTED website requirements and how to meet them. We know these are not online but it is another way we can support you with your CPD.
You have made an online PLN
We hope you consider yourselves part of our learning network. You are brilliant at telling us what you think of our products and how we can develop them. We take note of this and we feel this is one reason that our products go from strength to strength.
It was great to see so many customers at BETT this year and get an update of what you are doing and your future plans. Webanywhere has a strong social networking presence and we offer help and advice to all rather than just informing you of our offers and service available.
You share your life with virtual colleagues you have never met
We are lucky and have some very strong relationships with schools and businesses around the country. We definitely share our working lives with you and include all of our customers when breaking good news about the company.
Your weekly schedule involves Twitter chats
Webanywhere does tweet and we do follow and chat with our customers and other interesting organisations using Twitter. But we do prefer a more personal touch, that is why we enjoy talking to our customers directly whether that is a telephone call or an email.
Summer break means ISTE and other conferences
Webanywhere works through the summer, you will be surprised how many teachers take training sessions during the summer break, we are not though as we know how driven you are. We also do large installs and implementations during this quieter period. We are also planning for the new school year just like you. Planning events and offers that will help you to make the most of the technology you are using.
You know the vocabulary
This should possibly read know our products and services, the vocabulary will then follow automatically. Every educational establishment and business is different, they have different requirements and need varying levels of support. Understanding that we know that what we did for one organisation will not necessarily work in another.
You turn to colleagues in other countries in times of need
We do have colleagues and people in our PLN that are in other countries and they are an invaluable source of information. But we also turn to our customers and ask for their help. In March we took some new School Jotter apps to a local event and invited schools to attend. We had headteachers, teachers, teaching assistants and administration staff. We showed them our new apps and listened to them as they fed back. This was an amazing session and the developer we took with us had a good list of quality suggestions to take back to the development team to work on. An update at the end of June included many of those ideas.
You are a digital citizen
Gosh, we hope so. We strive to be role model digital citizens and if ever we let you down please tell us. As we have always done, we stretch beyond with our enthusiasm and willingness to go further. We are still in front of market needs and we go beyond what’s expected to deliver a truly positive experience for our customers.
You are always hungry to learn, try and tinker with new tech
This goes without saying, it is part of who we are.

Back in June we launched a new and exciting competition asking teachers and pupils to design a new app for our best selling School Jotter suite.  After all these are the people that use School Jotter and are possibly best placed to guide us on future apps.
The entries were varied and showed a great deal of creativity, we were very pleased with the response. It was a tough job but the decision was unanimous!
We are very pleased to announce that the winner was a pupil from Scargill Junior School in Rainham, Essex. The school will receive the full suite of School Jotter apps, worth £7,000. These include Jotter Learn, Resources, School Merits, Blog, Survey, Forum, Portfolio  and Messages. We hope that the pupils and staff enjoy their prize.
Here is the winning idea and we are sure you will agree that the app icon is eye catching and the description is thoughtfully written.

More information can be found about the School Jotter suite of apps here. Please remember we are always open to suggestions and ideas from schools, so please let us know, prize not included!

Another happy Webanywhere customer!

We’re delighted that the South Wales Evening Post has included a good news story from one of our customer schools. The article is reproduced below.

Get an Outstanding School Web Design

“A LLANELLI primary is on the button when it comes to its website. Dafen school’s website has recently reached a significant landmark, receiving 15,000 hits on its home page — with just over 40,000 pages read. This feat has been achieved since the site went live in March 2009.

School ICT co-ordinator Stuart Jacobs said: “The website has been a great success since it first went live and continues to be a valuable asset to the school.”

The website celebrates the successes of the school, as well as being used as a communication tool for parents and pupils.

The company that supports the website — Webanywhere — recently awarded the site four stars, out of a possible five.”

Visit Dafen Primary School’s website for further details.

As you will have noticed we have now completely redesigned our main Webanywhere.co.uk interface to provide clearer signposting of our main content areas. Over the next few weeks we’ll also be launching new versions of our product-specific microsites for Learnanywhere, Student Jotter, School Jotter, JotterCMS and Payschool.

Get an Outstanding School Web Design

We’ll be adding blog posts detailing new product functionality as when it’s available so why not bookmark this page.

Take advantage of our special offers!!

One of the ways to help your school save money while obtaining a great bespoke website is to take advantage of our special offers. For a limited time, you can access the premium version of our school website design and our CMS School Jotter service for a discounted price.

Contact us today to see how these special prices can help you upgrade and improve your school’s website design.

Bespoke School Web Design And Content Management System

A bespoke school web design is a website that is specially designed for your specific school. It is a unique opportunity to get a great website design for schools in the UK.

A good primary school website design will help enrollment as prospective students and parents will see what your school is all about. What is more important is that no one else will have the same message or design as your school.

Your school website design will be unique to your institution and provide a positive message to all your website’s visitors. Our special programs, like CMS, ensure that your teachers and staff can manage, post, and communicate easily and effectively.

With ease of navigation, your school website design should attract and hold website visitors on site for a lot longer. Getting to know you is important if you expect the surrounding neighbourhood to send their children to your school.

If you tour the internet very often you can see many website design for schools in the UK that are in need of our special programs as well as our special offers. While many are good website designs tweaking and enhancing them is always a good move to make.

Keeping your school’s website design nice and fresh pleases the search engines and gets you a better ranking. That is where our special offers and programs come in.

They will help you tweak what you already have and make it more interesting, more fun to visit and engage prospective students and parents better. Take the time to utilize our special offer as you win in implementing it.

Attractive Templates And Numerous Useful Features And Add-Ons

Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with new ways to say what you want to say on your school website design. All the good ideas seem to be taken and not available. Trying to think outside the box may not fit your school’s image or reputation.

But do not worry, there is creative help. Once you sign on to our programs, you can take advantage of the many website design templates our company offers.

These templates help you create a more exciting website that is very interesting to read and look at. The templates also help you incorporate images and videos that capture the attention of parents as well as their children.

Make your school website design better by employing our special templates. Not only that but we also offer some great features that add a lot of pizzazz to the look of your website.

Plus, these features ensure that your website visitors can easily navigate to other pages seamlessly and quickly. Making exploring your website easier is a great way to rank and get more eyes on your school.

Finally, with our many add-ons, you can create a great website design for schools in the UK. Be unique, innovative, and creative all at the same time with our special offer and add-ons.

This is a unique opportunity for you to enhance your school’s image and reputation. Take it while the offer lasts and help your school stand out from the crowd. Just stay within reason and you should be fine.