Some Ideas for Creating Good School Web Pages

The ideas below are based on our experience building and maintaining the Putnam Valley Schools web sites. Feel free to borrow, modify, or ignore this list. - Charles Hill, webmaster.

1. Start small and grow your pages as you go along.
   • Where is it written that you have to know everything now you may want to include on those pages some time in the future?
   • And where is it written that you have to know how to do it all before you ever start?
2. Make the pages useful to someone (know your audience). Some good uses for school pages are to:
   • Display student work.
   • Guide student research through lists of targeted links.
   • Offer students an interactive activity.
   • Provide important information to your audience.
3. Keep your pages simple.
4. Make your pages look good. (Yes - spelling does count. After all, this is a school!)
5. Look at the work of others to see how pages you like have been constructed. Don't plagarize - but do make use of good ideas you learn along the way.
6. Minimize the time it takes to download your pages by using:
   • Small pages.
   • Small graphics.
   • Repetitive graphic elements.
7. Organize your pages into logical folders or directories or, before you know it, you will have a confusing mess on your hands. For example, group all student work on a particular project in one folder and all their work on another project into a separate folder.
8. List a contact person on your pages.
9. Update the content of your site on a regular basis.
10. Show the dates sections of your site were last updated when those sections are time sensitive in some way.
11. Involve as many people (adults and students) as you can. After all, who said you have to do this all by yourself?

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