Some local ppl & I have started a small homeschool group that we have big plans for. There really isnt anything in our area for homeschoolers, we seem to be a very small minority. (Not really surprised though,LOL.) What I am looking for is a place that I can set up a web page for our group to refer to calendar dates for field trips, archery club practice, etc... Also we would like this to be a place that others in our area who may have questions or interest in homeschooling to refer to our site for contact info, etc... So I am hoping that some of you veterans who have experience in this category can give some guidance on where to start, like where is the best & easiest (& free) place to set up such web page. I am clueless when it comes to any of this so ANY info would be helpful as I need ALL I can get. Thanks & God bless!
When I first started homeschooling ( 10+ years ago) Yahoo Groups were the thing. You can control who becomes members, set it to public or private and have a forum. Now it seems that Facebook pages work better. My group page on Facebook is for book club..we have discussions, post about books and have notes/docs set to the side ( as a sticky). Blogger page might work too. When we were part of a private co-op we used Blogger , had it set to private invite only and all teachers would post there (after each class we had 2 days to post what we did so all parents knew what was going on) and we could post questions there as well. I really liked the Blogger page, it was easy to use.
Facebook seems to be the most popular site going if you're looking for a large group of people. And you can still limit access on facebook if you choose that way or it can be open as well
I'd agree with Yahoo or Facebook. They seem to be the easiest to use. Although I haven't been able to get anything started on Facebook. Some people are still leery to have a FB profile, where they will use the Yahoo groups. Our Yahoo HS group is fairly active.
same for us, we had a Yahoo group and it was a pain in the tush. I know someone did maintain a group calandar on a seperate website with the date of meetings at the park, the date of clothing exchange, and other activities, it also had links for midevel lessons, and stuffl like that, stuff that was really popular to study, etc...
I started my homeschool group with a Yahoo page. Then, I added in a regular but simple website using Go Daddy. Now, our group has the Yahoo group [to screen people initially], the website [where people can initially find us and be linked to the Yahoo group site], and some private forums for our primary, regular communications, which our group members far and away prefer to the Yahoo group. I liked having the website because there are a lot of homeschool sites that will list your group for free--- provided you can show that you have linked to their site. So, having the website allowed me to get essentially free advertising on those big sites. So, I'd personally recommend checking into a setting up a simple website, then list your group with some of the big homeschool information sites, and then either go with the Yahoo group [at least initially] or set up free boards. I use proboards.com. They're free, and you can set them up for registered only use/viewing to make them private.
