Creating
a School Web Site
December
2001/January 2002, Journal
of Adventist Education, written by Janine
Lim
Since many students
and parents use the Internet as a source of information,
setting up a school Web site is a great way to advertise
your institution and to provide information for your
constituents. In this column, we will look at reasons
for having a Web site, examples of information to include,
and some design and technical suggestions.
Why
Create a Web Site?
A Web site can provide
good publicity for your school, as well as a great deal
of useful information for students and parents. And
it may attract other people as well. Who might visit
your site?
-
Parents seeking a Christian education for their children.
-
Grandparents eager to see their grandchildren's school
work and artistic creations.
-
Community members seeking information about school
events or fund-raising programs.
-
Students from near and far who are interested in studying
at your institution or in special programs or features
you offer (help for students with learning disabilities,
foreign language immersion courses, musical groups,
etc.).
How do you get started?
What should you put on the site? First, define your
audience and determine what information they would be
interested in. Don't try to provide more information
than you can manage and keep up to date. Here are some
examples of information you may want to include, along
with examples of actual Web sites of some Adventist
schools around the world.
• Begin with general information about your school,
using already-printed materials as the basis of your
first pages. Include your location (along with a map);
the programs you offer, information from your handbook,
such as application procedures, dress code, necessary
immunizations, and documents to bring when they enroll
(photo identification, Social Security card, birth certificate,
passport, visa, etc.), school fees; policies relating
to grading, suspension, and expulsion, cheating and
plagiarism; school closing policies, transportation
information, what to do in case a disaster strikes during
school hours, and how to request information such as
a transcript or other documents. Be sure to post an
up-to-date school calendar, including scheduled meetings
such as parent/teacher conferences, open house, and
PTA and board meetings.
• Prominently feature your school's mission statement
and master plan, along with any supporting documents
or evidence of how you work toward those goals. Include
pictures that illustrate the mission statement and various
spiritual-life activities.
•
Include students' individual and collaborative work
(writing, art, science projects, etc.). Consider inserting
a photo essay to give parents a glimpse of a typical
day in their child's classroom at that grade level.
Include a description of long-term assignments and class
projects, with periodic updates ("This year, Ms.
Miller's 5th and 6th graders are doing an ongoing analysis
of the water quality in the Baobab River.")
Make
sure that the links from your school's entrance page
to other locations in the site entice visitors to read
and learn more. Don't start with a long and boring introduction
by the principal or president. See the "Following
Christ" newsletter, Zaokski Theological Seminary,
http://www.adventist.org.ru/info/view?eng-def2/;
and The Falcon's Nest by an Alaskan public elementary
school, for an award-winning example of a school Web
site. Be sure to check out the Microcopium. (See http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/upk/upk.home.html.)
• Next, create pages featuring your school staff
and administrators. Include names, titles, photos, and
a brief biography of teachers, administrators, office
staff members, and other school personnel. Include a
way to contact them, preferably school E-mail addresses.
Be careful about listing home phone numbers and other
personal information, keeping in mind that the Web page
will be available to the whole world. It's probably
best to give only the school phone numbers and an emergency
after-hours number to call. Obtain permission before
posting staff photos and personal information on the
site.
• Be sure
to feature any special programs offered by your school.
Do you have one or more teachers skilled in helping
learners with handicaps or learning disabilities? Do
you teach English as a Second Language or advanced technology
courses? Does your school have any other unique offerings?
What extracurricular opportunities are available (choir,
band, clubs, or sports programs)? How about classes
in applied or fine arts? Do you offer advanced course
work to challenge students? Be sure to advertise and
feature these programs on your Web site.
• What kinds of work opportunities are available
to help students defray the costs of attending your
school? Post photos of students at various jobs in school
offices and industries.
• Include information for residential students,
such as a photo of a typical dorm room and a list of
items needed to furnish it.
• Feature prominently the service opportunities
at your school, such as mission trips, outreach and
spiritual-life activities, and other avenues for reaching
out to the community. For example, Majuro Seventh-day
Adventist Schools list information for prospective student
missionaries on their site: http://www.tagnet.org/majuro/.
• Highlight the accomplishments and successes of
your teachers and students, including standardized test
scores, statistics on campus safety, and other information
that promotes the advantages of attending your school.
• Include
links to other Web sites that students can use in their
classwork. This saves instruction time and makes the
resources available to students both at home and at
school. Provide links to other resources helpful to
parents and students, as well. Include a disclaimer
stating that "Every reasonable attempt has been
made to ensure Web pages are educationally safe and
do not contain links that violate the district's acceptable-use
policy."(1) See teacher Web pages at La Sierra
Academy: http://www.lsak12.com/webpages/teacherwebs.htm/.
• Provide recent issues of school and classroom
newsletters or up-to-date news about the school. See
the Web site for Adventist International Institute of
Advanced Studies in the Philippines: http://www.aiias.edu/.
• Include information on fund-raising programs
such as citrus fruit sales and ways that prospective
financial partners can support the school. See Pakistan
Adventist Seminary's site: http://www.tagnet.org/pas/.
• For colleges and universities especially, include
information about the town/country around you for prospective
students and visitors. See Caribbean Union College's
site: http://www.tagnet.org/caribbean/.
• Include recorded quotes by students and chat
rooms and bulletin boards for alumni to add variety
and interest to your site. However, be sure that such
Web-based "bells and whistles . . . add clarity
and enhance your message."(2) See Avondale College's
site: http://www.avondale.edu.au/.
• Consider offering information in more than one
language (or a separate site for each language) if your
institution serves more than one language group. See
Zaokski Theological Seminary's site: http://www.adventist.org.ru/.
Time
Investment
Creating and maintaining
a school Web page is an ongoing task. The site needs
to be maintained regularly (weekly or monthly) to keep
the information, news, and teacher Web pages up to date.
Most universities and colleges can afford to hire students
or staff to maintain their site. However, elementary
and secondary schools will probably need a volunteer
or paid technical-support person to create and maintain
the site. Sometimes this can be assigned to a small
team.
Decide what is most important to feature on the site,
what needs to updated and how often, and then find staff
members, volunteers, or students to help with the work.
It may be best to get a professional to design or at
least evaluate the plans for the site to ensure that
technical issues such as computer capacity, software,
and protection against hackers have been addressed.
Other
Issues to Consider
If students are
helping to design or maintain the school Web site, a
responsible adult should check their work for accuracy,
appropriateness, navigation, and design before it is
posted on the World Wide Web. Also, if you intend to
post pictures or work of students under the age of 17,
you should obtain parental permission.(3) A parental-release
form can be incorporated into the registration process
to make this process easier.
Thoughts on Design
As you design your
school Web site, keep your audience in mind and try
to make the pages simple and easy to use. Aim for clean
graphics, crisp copy, useful information, and easy navigation.(4)
Make the type large and bold enough to be readable,
and arrange it in a way that is pleasing to the eyes.
Avoid putting type on busy backgrounds or over photos.
Don't use loud colors for backgrounds. Make sure the
graphics are small in size (25K or less if possible)
so that the pages load quickly even with slower modems.
Create an entrance page that is simple and fast loading.
Avoid repeating music and video clips that will annoy
the visitor after the first few page views. When selecting
graphics, be sure to obtain permission to use materials
from the Internet unless they come from "copyright
friendly" sites.(5) Or you can create your own
graphics.
Design the navigation of the site so that a visitor
can get to the various pages easily. For example, note
that Thunderbird Adventist Academy's page has multiple
links to the various services on their Web page: http://www.thunderbirdacademy.org/.
Another helpful navigation feature is short descriptor
phrases with the links on the home page so that visitors
know what is included under each link. See the Universidad
de Montemorelos Web site at http://www.umontemorelos.edu.mx/
for an example.
Hosting
the School Web Page
When you are ready
to put your school's Web site online, choose a reliable
service to host it. Here are some options:
TAGnet ("Three
Angels Global Networking") at http://www.tagnet.org/
is an organization operated by a group of Seventh-day
Adventists to enable and empower churches, schools,
organizations, and ministries wanting to have a presence
on the World Wide Web. Many Adventist schools host their
Web sites through TAGnet.
Other options for Web hosting can be found at the Web
Host List at http://webhosts.thelist.com/.
Free Homepage Hosting. Another option is to create and
publish your school Web page on a free site. There are
many options for this, including BigChalk.com, MySchoolOnline,
Apple's iTools, and more.(6) Many of these sites include
advertising to pay for their costs.
Providing a school Web site for your parents and students
can enhance home and school communication, offer information
on homework and assignments, and attract new students
to your school.
_____________________________________
Janine
Lim is an Instructional Technology Consultant at the
Berrien County Intermediate School District in Berrien
Springs, Michigan. She works with Adventist schools,
as well as with other private and public schools.
Notes
and References
- "One
District's Approach"—sidebar by Sylvia Knapp on page
27 of Nora Carr's "Building a Better Web Site," Electronic
School (September 2001), pp. 24-27. Also available
at http://www.electronic-school.com/2001/09/0901betterwebsite.html.
- Nora
Carr, "Building a Better Web Site," Electronic
School, p. 24. Also available at http://www.electronic-school.com/2001/09/0901betterwebsite.html.
- See
the Child Online Protection Act for more information:
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/copa.html/.
- See
"Building a Better Web Site," by Nora Carr, page 24.
Also available at http://www.electronic-school.com/2001/09/0901betterwebsite.html.
- For
links to graphics that you can use on your school
Web site, see Web Authoring Tools at http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/bcisd/classres/web.htm/.
- See
http://www.macul.org/newsletter/2001/july2001/techelem.html
for more information and detailed descriptions of
each site.
