Yearbook adviser Will over here reads Pat’s latest post and thinks, “golly, that is a great idea.” A “genuine annual history of the school community.” What a concept! What a cool site that could be, and my mind races away with all sorts of ideas for content. I wish I had more time to think in these terms, ’cause as I’ve said over and over, there are inumerable great ways to use these things. And he’s pushing my thinking in terms of publication once again. I don’t know where he gets the time…
How do we make such sites popular…that’s the burning question on this end. Ain’t none of this gonna work if we don’t make it appealing. I do probably 75% of my news reading online now, but I know I’m in the very small minority. If we were to take our newspaper or yearbook online in weblog format, we’ll have to make it extremely interesting content.
Pat says: “And that last leads into further collaboration with the design and programming guys in Bakersfield. What if we had this all in mind before designing a ‘newsBlog’ theme? What school would not kill for this kind of newspaper / literary magaze / year book-ready Manila application?” Which goes back to what I was screaming a long time ago…let’s build better templates, ones education specific. Bryan is doing yeoman’s work, but there is still a long road ahead in terms of templates that work in all browsers and can be easily altered to meet the needs of individual teachers and classes. I still need someone to help me with call-back scripts for the teacher portfolio template, for instance. Nice to keep finding new ways to implement…just wish I was implementing the right stuff.
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