Building a Network of Public School Websites on a Public School Budget

Jon Moss

Avon Public

Schools

Avon, CT

edvantaged.com

BUILDING A NETWORK

OF PUBLIC SCHOOL

WEBSITES ON A PUBLIC

SCHOOL BUDGET

Teacher websites in Avon Public Schools vary in

Content/Features

Design

Structure

Platform

Accuracy

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

WORDPRESS

SCHOOL NOTES

GOOGLE SITES

FIRST CLASS

SINGLE PAGE

MULTIMEDIA

SOCIAL MEDIA

SKIES OF BLUE

SEAS OF GREEN

ALL PINK, ALL THE TIME!

OUT OF DATE

MISSING CONTENT

NON-EXISTANT!

CURRENT FEATURES ON PK-4 TEACHER

WEBSITES

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Volunteering

Class Descriptions

Math Facts

Program Info

Conferences

Photos

Quotations

Homework

Curriculum

Calendar

Spelling

Policies

Files

Roster

Resources

About Me

Contact Me

Welcome

Newsletter

Other

Schedule

Links

A platform that...

Unifies teacher websites within one system

Promotes consistent design elements

Maintains certain minimum required features in teacher

websites

Has the flexibility to meet dif ferent teachers’ needs

Social media, forums, file hosting, student work showcase, etc.

Low cost and ad-free

WHAT WE NEED

MOBILE VOICE TELEPHONY

PORTABLE COMPUTING

SITE-WIDE TELECOMMUNICATION

PERSONAL DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

DESKTOP COMPUTERS FOR CODING

A platform that...




websites




Can be deployed mostly by in -house IT and ET staff

Can be used by novice teachers with a minimum of training.

Has the flexibility to meet future district needs.

WHAT WE NEED

Web Developer

and Designer

Information Technology

Educational Technology

A platform that...




websites






Has the flexibility to meet future district needs.

WHAT WE NEED

Make firm decisions about default options (comments, user

permissions, etc.)

Rule by exception

Secure proper hosting and backup services.

Create Multisite installation (great support on Codex)

Use the User Role Editor plugin to establish custom roles and

permissions.

What will be norm for granting permissions?

Give more permissions or give fewer permissions?

Select and configure your theme and settings.

Install and test plugins.

WHERE TO BEGIN

Create template site

Include required pages, components, sidebar widgets, etc.

Will you have a universal template site or individual template sites

for each building?

Register users

Consider mass-registering users if you have a large number of

accounts to create and configure.

Use the Blog Copier plugin to duplicate and customize your

template sites.

Set up teacher accounts on each site.

SETTING UP SITES

Start with a predefined set of permissions (usually “Editor”)

Add as necessary:

add_users

create_users

delete_users

edit_users

list_users

remove_users

edit_theme_options

Promote as necessary

Demote users as necessary or upon request

USER MANAGEMENT

Provide organized, dif ferentiated training.

Avoid this:

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY...

Give your

users

control, per

mission, and

skills to

make their

site what is

right for

them and

their class!

AND...

Join us at

www.edvantaged.com/msdemo

SAMPLE NETWORK OF SITES

Fine-tuning user permissions

Will be resolved during the PILOT PROCESS (a must!)

Embedding HTML (based on permissions)

Hiding menu options for some user (perhaps based on

permissions?)

CHALLENGES

Search by date of last update

Archive sites that are no longer active

Ease of access for troubleshooting

ONGOING MANAGEMENT ADVANTAGES

A platform that...





WHAT WE NEED

Jon Moss@JonMossEdTech

[email protected]

www.edvantaged.com

Thank you

Boston

and

Microsoft NERD Center!

THANK YOU!

Building a Network of Public School Websites on a Public School Budget

Technology

Transcript of Building a Network of Public School Websites on a Public School Budget