Liz Niederberger Zumu Software Websites Made Easy! How many of you update your website once a day? once a week? once every two weeks? once a month? September? What if I told you, there are lots of schools that update their site at least twice a day? 10-15 times a day? 50 times a day? 70 times a day? 125 times a day? I'm going to show you how you can do this, with less work that you're putting into your website now. Liz Niederberger Zumu Software

Thing to Think About 1. Who’s your audience? 2. Layout & Navigation 3. Content, Content, Content 4. Policies & Procedures 5. Updating Requirement Defined and Reviewed 6. Everything in One Place 7. Tools available for many applications 8. Easy-to-Maintain 9. Site Registration 10. Site Statistics

Who’s Your Audience? What’s your websites main purpose? Students Parents Teachers Administrators School Board Community Members Potential Employees Provide Information to Interested Parties Easy to Find Timely Relevant Other Resources

Who’s Looking Know your audience Most visited pages on a school site who comes to your site who uses your site what they’re looking for Most visited pages on a school site Review the statistics for your current site to find out the most visited pages HS - Job Postings, Athletic Pages, Lunch ES - Job Postings, Lunch, Calendar

Layout & Navigation Site Look Navigation - simple, easy-to-use navigation. Top navigation bar, side bar, both (example) Popout or drop down menus (example 1, 2) Design consistency Individual schools - colors, navigation, look Design Layout Full page, fixed width, relative, centered (example 1, 2)

Content Saves time, money and resources! Most important part of a school website! Anything you want students, parents, teachers, administrators and community members to know should be on the school website! This information should be easy to find! Make your website the first place everyone goes go to find information. Saves time, money and resources!

Policies and Procedures Teacher User Agreements Define Responsiblities Define Allowable Content General Information Teacher Information Student Information Posting Frequency

Updating Requirements Who is responsible for posting information for each section of the website. Who is responsible for providing information for each section of the website. How often each section of the site will be updated. Who is responsible for checking that the updates have been made and are correct. What happens if the requirements have not been met.

Everything in One Place All web resources can be found in one place email login grade book login teaching aides (United Streaming, web based software, text book links, etc.) All papers sent home can be found here student handbooks, flyers, notices Emergency Notices Posted Here First snow pages, emergency closings, situation notices

First Page Should Include Easy-to-understand navigation Site search Good title tag - Smithtown School District Latest news, important information, upcoming events Brief summaries of the information with links to more Contact information, especially a phone number

Things to Avoid Anything that doesn't contribute directly to the understanding of the site or doesn't impart information Think about music, whistles, and beeps. they play unreliably across browsers and platforms they don't really impart information.

Tools for Many Applications Announcement Boards Calendars Snow Pages Photo Galleries Teacher Pages Lesson Plans Surveys Forms Event Boxes File Sharing Blogs Wikis RSS Feeds Instant Messaging On-Line Courses Digital Lockers

Announcement Boards District Wide Elementary Schools Middle Schools High Schools

Calendars District Calendars Lunch Calendars School Calendars Sports Calendars Building/Room Usage Calendars Linked Calendars

Snow Pages

Image Galleries Event Photos Kids Work Construction Photos Sports Pictures Easy to upload Thumbnail automatically Size to 640 x 460 pages automatically Click through for detailed image

Teacher Pages One page easy teacher pages - WYSIWYG editor Multiple page layouts also available. Allow teacher choice, can link to outside pages.

Lesson Plans Every teach can use this feature. Display entire plan or only homework. Reporting on Core Curriculum Guidelines will be available in September 2004 (additional fee for reports).

Surveys Board Surveys Fun Surveys Administration Surveys Can be placed where every you want. On front page, board page, school page.

Forms Technology Surveys Trouble Reporting Contact Forms Professional Development Personnel Forms Alumni Forms

Event Boxes Shows information from other sections of the site. Linked to calendars, announcement boards, sports, upcoming events, recent postings, etc. Changes automatically. Can be set to view any length of time. Good to use when sites aren't updated daily.

File Sharing Teachers Students Administrators Board Members

Blogs The use of blogs in instructional settings is limited only by your imagination. Options for instructors using blogs: Content-related blog as professional practice Networking and personal knowledge sharing Instructional tips for students Course announcements and readings Annotated links Knowledge management

Wikis Wikis allow users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Create a wiki for a class to use throughout the year. Wikis can be Private or Public depending upon the user group (students, teachers) Wikis allow the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.

RSS Feeds RSS users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software. Current Firefox and new Internet Explorer verison support RSS feeds without addditional software. Once a page changes, anyone who has subscribed is notified in their reader.

On-Line Courses Moodle is a course management system designed to help educators create effective online learning communities. Zumu currently allows educators to try out this software and develop online courses or additional tools for their regular classes.

Digital Lockers Web-based document management application, providing a complete set of document and file management capabilities which allows adminsitrators, faculty and students to easily share and manage their files.

Easy-to-Maintain Content Mangement Software Web-Based (edit from anywhere) Permissions based editing Defined responsibilies and accountability Takes minutes not hours Shared Responsibility

Site Registration Allow readers to add their email addresses to a database Easily send information regularly to those who signed up Weekly school updates, sports team results Provides a fast means of communication for those who signup Reward early adopters with early information!

Site Statistics Set goals - Show results Get more people to use the site Provide new reasons to come to the site Keep people coming back Show off the great stuff going on in school Improve community interaction

Jacob’s Law Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience states that "users spend most of their time on other websites." Website Look - were' going to talk about navigation, information, good and bad design features. Website Structure - things that every school needs Announcement Boards Calendars Photo Galleries Teacher Pages, etc. ideas and possiblities Content and control. April will present.

Questions and Comments