TPS website to be “living, breathing resource”
03 Aug 2007
Via a press release I received from Tell Toledo,:
Toledo-based WebArt has been awarded the contract for designing and building the new Toledo Public Schools website. WebArt won the job over seven other competing companies.
The new site will be a “living, breathing resource for parents, students, teachers and administrators,” said WebArt principal Steve Timofeev. “It will include a ‘content manager’ function that will allow authorized staff members to update content quickly and easily. And fresh, robust content is one of the keys to a website’s long-term effectiveness.”
Given the current condition of the Toledo Public Schools website? It sounds like this will be a huge advancement.
Based upon the layout I have seen, TPS has completely forgotten the 78% of families and citizens of Toledo that are not parents of students. There does not appear to be any section to layout public information and other relevant documents such as for the school building program. It again looked as though they developed the information layout based upon discussion with a limited number of participants. There are a number of community members that could have assisted them in their efforts but I am not aware of any call for suggestions, input, etc. If I am wrong, someone please tell me.
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:54 pmOh, I forgot an important item – budget and financial data. TPS keeps asking for community input but how can you provide meaningful input if you don’t have access to how they budget, what is included in the budget and what are the actual results vs. the budget……
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:59 pmSteven,
There ya go again, asking some of those thought provoking questions.
I’ll bet that the School Board probably thinks of you as trouble…
Keep up the good work
August 4th, 2007 at 4:13 pmI was thinking I was lucky that these school websites werent around when I was growing up – my lies about “no homework” and the like probably wouldnt have worked as well.
August 4th, 2007 at 4:14 pmI know Steve Timofeev at WebArt and the new website will be in good hands. I hope they ask the community what they really want this website to do, which will lead to much more functional website for everyone
August 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pmBen, that’s very true, when my daughters attended Springfield their teachers put their homework on line so it was easy to be able to not only check but was helpful when they forgot.
Jaan, thank you for that information, given your level of knowledge when it comes to the internet it sounds as if TPS made a good choice. I also agree with you as to community input. Steven made some very good suggestions, I’d also like to see the budgetary information online as well as suggesting now would be a great time to provide video/audio of school board meetings streamed for those who cannot attend.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:42 pmWeb site designers can be a valuable resource and there are many good ones. However, they still have to do what the client says and TPS officials are, in my opinion, not very good listeners and/or unable to take advice even from experts.
You can see the the layout information at http://tpsinfo.com
August 6th, 2007 at 10:25 am