Basics of K-12 Web Site Design
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4. Easy Navigation
Help your visitors get around your site easily, and keep them from getting lost. Create a standard "navigation bar" or set of navigation icons that represent standard navigation movements­within your site, such as: Go back to home page, Site Index, Table of Contents., and another one that takes the visitor to the beginning of the particular section. For example, if the visitor is in
sports scores, or team photos section, have an icon that takes them back to the main 'Sports Home Page" in addition to the school's main home page.


5. Create a Reason to visit ­ again and again!
In addition to static information about your school, go out of your way to include sections that provide compelling, changing content. Add something interesting, something that is subject to change, or that people will want to visit over and over again. Examples of this type of "Come again" site content are:
  • Homework assignments, class schedules
  • Sports scores and team statistics, with photos
  • Weather information
  • News sources
  • Internet searching page, a homework helper page
  • Student projects and artwork
  • Interviews with members of the community
  • Local government and community news, schedules, information (this could be anything from swimming pool and library operating hours, to how and where to get a dog license, to election information)
  • Webcams with Cu­SeeMe cameras ­ these are very popular. They take a bit to set up but it isn't very difficult and creates a lot of come again traffic.
  • Virtual tours ­ these­aren't difficult to create. Create photo tours using a digital camera (as low as $350), or simply scan in photographs. Let your imagination run wild on this one: could be tours that community members have taken and are willing to share photos; school field trips, student exchange programs, Meet the teacher/student hour Town. history photo collage and so on. Don't forget interviews it/ with community members, government officials, residents of old people's/rest homes, etc.

All these are interesting and provide opportunity to tie into your existing curriculum. The idea is to create an intersting one­stop site on the Intemet for your school and local community. And your students can enrich their reaming experience at the same time, too. We'll talk a bit more about that as we discuss building a community web.

6. Community Web
Your website can be a great method of involving students, parents and all aspects of your community. Your goals would include getting community involved, and putting up lots of information about the community. For a successful community web effort, you must include input from many people in the community and design it to meet their needs and wants.
Here's an idea that works well, and will guarantee the best school and or community web site: Create a Webmaster's Club. Invite students, teacher, parents and community members to participate in your Webmaster's Club. You don't all have to meet at one time, all the time. The idea is to have different groups of people take ownership of different sections of the website. Then, think like a newspaper publisher and create a group leader (assistant editor) for each department. Organize volunteers into small groups and assign tasks for each department of your web site ­ such as
  • updating sports scores, team pictures and statistics
  • gathering editing and posting interviews with community members
  • maintaining a local government section
  • establishing a set of web pages for each teacher and help them post personal
  • information, lessons, assignments, student and parent news, as well as student
  • artwork and projects
  • collecting information for a special interest section

Ask members of your club for content ideas. Send a questionaire to students, teachers, parents and community members and businesses, asking for their ideas on what should be on the web site. The more people you have involved, the better the web site will be, and the more interesting. You will also have a built­Tn sense of ownership since you have so many contributors. You will have made it much easier to keep the site updated and manageable, since your volunteers and contributors will be doing much of the work. First, though, create an overall design and 'look and feel' for the site.

To get started you can hold a short class on web fundamentals, and point club members to various tutorials on the Intemet. Have several students mentor the others. Take them on a live tour of schools on the web.