Four Primary Goals for a School
Web Site
Web sites - properly constructed
- are information systems. They efficiently structure content to provide
visitors with knowledge and insight. They become a single source for a community
to access and provide information.
Given the sometimes poorly
organized resources available on the Web, a good school Web site helps people
find educationally worthwhile information with a minimum of wasted time and
wandering.
The four goals of this Web site
are:
- Introduce visitors to the
school - its mission, its character, its look, its offerings to children,
its stance on new technologies and its overall spirit. Many parents now shop
the internet to locate and evaluate schools for their children. We want to
make sure that they can easily learn why OLL is TheBestSchoolinOmaha.com!
- Point to excellent information
on the larger Web - identifying the best resources the Web has to offer an
educational family, those most likely to support the curriculum and the
kinds of investigations likely to be undertaken by staff and students alike;
- Offer an opportunity for
building a stronger community by quickly providing and receiving
information. By providing access to the events, mission and development
needs to a wider audience than our current base of active stakeholders, we
will increase the opportunity to add to our volunteer and development base.
Receiving information in the form of on line polling gives the school
administration and leaders additional input to make more informed decisions.
- Save time and money by
allowing parents parishioners and volunteers a self service outlet,
available 24 hours a day from virtually anywhere, to view information
that they would otherwise call the school or rectory office to request. Over
time this should save the staff time and reduce photocopying and postage
expenses.
Challenges
- Accessibility to the site by
all school parents, students, teachers, parishioners and volunteers. Until
all of these individuals have access to a computer and an internet service
provider, the web site will not be as effective as it could.
- Receiving and managing the
information. While I can manage a core amount of information relative to
promotion, development and the policies of the school community, this is
just a start. Any by-laws or policies of other school groups need to
be e-mail to the webmaster in a Word document.
Your name and phone number should also be included.
Also I will link to other web pages that will be more current if managed
by the source of the information. These are simple, and free, web based
services that should be personalized and maintained by school teachers, activity group leaders and coaches. There is far too much going on
in the parish for one volunteer to manage. Content and freshness of
information, along with promotion of the site will ultimately determine the
success of this site.
Thanks in advance for your
support and understanding!
