If a student wants to take their code a host a real-world accessible site, where can they go?
I’m sure other teachers have places they might recommend. Most places where you can host do have a monthly fee and you usually need to buy your domain name, but if they want an environment where they can practice coding with a full featured text editor that’s a step away from the code.org “training wheels”, one good site I’ve found is http://repl.it
It’s a site where you can write code in a large number of languages (including html) and immediately “run” your code (ie. launch your website) and share that link with anyone you want.
It’s not a true hosting site in the sense that you can create your own domain, but you do get a full featured online code editor and it’s a great place to store your projects.
If they were going to actually create a site for a business or as a hobby, there are probably 50+ hosting companies that can assist with registering a domain name and hosting their code.
Hope this helps a little.
Mike
I’m interested to hear what other people have used for free external hosting as well. Code.org hosting is a great option but I’d like to show students how this interface translates to a text editor and how they can manage their files in a folder.
I’ve had a student move his code.org website to a hosting site, buy a domain, and publish his site. It is no longer live but it was a company similar to THIS from this article. He did this all on his own outside of school. I’m guessing for most middle school students, you would want to look for low to no cost, accessible through school filters, and a built-in HTML editor/file manager and does the chosen site/method meet acceptable use for student age and student privacy policies. If you are going to move to a more sophisticated HTML editor such as DreamWeaver, you probably need to have discussions with your IT department on options and protocols. Perhaps they even have a secure server you could publish to? 
Lots to think about but students get pretty excited knowing they have created something they can share with the world!!
Michelle
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