School Websites

Sometimes I should just stop and let things roll as they are, but I do find it difficult. Recently I made a proposition to the Head that I would be willing to get involved with the update, modernization and maintenance of the School Website. Whether this turns out to be a good or bad idea, only time will tell. The Head loved the idea though!

Although usually aesthetically pleasing, a school site has so much more potential than is generally used. As well as this, there is outdated information and the photos rarely get updated. A site would get more views if the information was updated on a more regular basis.

After viewing so called "award winning school websites", I was not entirely impressed and realised that the focus was generally on image rather then content. I believe that a site should be aesthetically pleasing, yes, and easy to navigate. However, it should also be regularly updated and it should aim to focus on three areas:

1.    Making the current website a better advert for the school (both to current and potential parents)

2.    Improving communication in school-related matters between teacher-pupil, teacher-parent and pupil-parent

3.    Widening the use of technology to facilitate teaching and learning across the school curriculum

Some ideas I came up with to help in these areas are as follows:

·      Password protected links to class and subject based websites. There are currently many of these already in use, but it would be much better to have access to all of them from one location.

·      A drive to produce departmental/class websites as platforms to implement technology in the classroom as well as communication.

·      A weekly News Bulletin done in video format, as well as paper based format. I believe this would get viewed a lot more than the current bulletin and the pupils could run it. Any news could also be pushed automatically to parent’s computers, smart phones or iPads.

·      A link to Green/Environmental Awareness Information, videos and resources.

·      Downloadable, pupil-written iBooks. Why not make full use out of the technology we now have and encourage projects to create iBooks? The children’s work could be uploaded to the iBooks database and be downloadable by parents from the Grange Website.

·      As part of the push for modernization, Twitter and Facebook could also be used to disseminate information and discuss/share new school projects within the community.