School district breaking news and the ability for education
officials to directly contribute information to keep the public
informed are some of the new features of the Morgan Hill Unified
School District’s revamped Web site.
MORGAN HILL
School district breaking news and the ability for education officials to directly contribute information to keep the public informed are some of the new features of the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s revamped Web site.
The new site’s redesign took five months to complete at a cost of $5,000. It debuted last week and the public can access it by going to the same electronic address as before, www.mhu.k12.ca.us.
The site also has a new “school locator” feature, which allows residents to type in their home address and find their neighborhood school.
Also, the site now assists Spanish-language visitors. By clicking on the “En Español” feature, the site’s content can be read in Spanish.
A “Site Search” feature was also added to give visitors another way to find the information they are seeking. And podcast downloads are now available, said Arlene Machado, director of educational technology/information systems for the district.
“We thought that was another option we wanted to offer, given the fact that so many people carry iPods around with them,” said Machado. “What we were really looking for, with the new site, is to offer a variety of ways for people to be able to access the information they need.”
Machado said the site’s improvements will continue as features can be added and updated as needed.
Links to the district’s individual school sites are still available under “Quick Links.” Site visitors can click on “Our Schools” to find the locations they’re interested in and be linked to their Web sites.
Machado said the site is built on a “concept management system.”
“In the past, I was the only one here who knew how to edit and design and to build Web pages, and if the information needed to go out immediately, often I was in a meeting or unavailable, it always hinged on me,” she said. “It has been, for many years, a board goal to improve communication.”
Adding information to the site, she said, is “like typing on Word,” which is user-friendly. District office employees can be trained to upload information so that Machado is not the single source for adding information.
Machado viewed approximately 50 sites, made note of the positive and negative aspects of each, and the Web design company came up with a “shell” for the site.
Machado said she would welcome feedback about the new site.
