The Educators' Royal Treatment

Great CMS Helps Build Your District Brand

by Katie Brosious

In response to both Eric Sheninger's post about the importance of branding in education, and Trish Rubin's blog, EdVentures in a New York Minute, about branding in education, I started to think about how, with a CMS, schools can use their district Web site to establish a brand.

The Importance of a Brand in Education

Although I will leave this part mostly to the experts (Thanks Eric and Trish!), I will say a few words about the importance of a brand in education. Education is a service. Education is just like any other service in that it must exude value in the business that it is in, in order to attract new students. In education, school districts must show academic value. Bad or good; clear or not, everything--person, place, or thing--has some sort of brand attached to it. It's what others think and feel about what you have to offer.

Why doesn't education take advantage of this? Especially K-12 school districts! Universities have come a long way, and seem to be working on establishing their own individual brand. However, many school districts do not put their best foot forward...To network, to evolve, to improve, and to show the world what they are accomplishing.

But how would they spread their message? It's not like school districts have the advertising budgets of McDonald's or Coca Cola. They have the label of 'school,' which implies education, but it's extremely obvious that no two schools are the same. Its important for schools to build their brand because school districts, more than any other educational institution, need to stay updated and in the know. Today's K-12 students are tomorrow's leaders. It is essential for schools to have a cohesive mission, a set of values, and a sense of pride within the district, which can be done by establishing a brand.

Branding on the Web

More and more, school districts are using social networking sites like Twitter to extend and enhance their brand. Some Twitter accounts are for the whole district, some just for a school, and some are from teachers, staff or administrators from the district. Each Twitter account is another point of contact for that district. It improves community outreach, makes the district more personable and personal, and helps to spread the district message. Social media sites like Twitter are great. And they're an extension of the district brand. But they just aren't enough. Even if a district has a great media presence, consistency throughout the district all-inclusive WEB presence is key.

Aside from social media, the school district Web site is often the most important point of contact for the school district. If community members want to know what time the football game is on Friday, the district site is the first source of information. The district Web site is like the Encyclopedia for that district. Students, parents and community members expect to have all of their questions answered simply by clicking over to the district Web site. It must support a cohesive brand and mission along with all other point of contacts for that district on the web.

Using ContentM K-12 to Brand your District

The best and easiest way to build a school district Web site is with a CMS like ContentM K-12. Not only will you be able to design and implement your school district Web site with ease, you (or anyone else) will be able to maintain it with a few clicks. You will be able to update your Web site in seconds when you need to (i.e., for snow day cancellations or delays). You can spread the word about your district's overall academic accomplishments. You can show your students' accomplishments. The best Web sites are dynamic and fluid; they are always changing as new things happen. School district Web sites should be no different.

Schoole Awards: Nominate Your District Web Site!

by Katie Brosious

Looking for the Best District Web Site

A few weeks ago, I launched a contest for my company called the SchoolE Awards.  The SchoolE Awards are an opportunity for school districts to get recognized for their great web design, contest, and overall best Web site practices. In response to Eric Sheninger's post about the importance of branding in education, this contest falls right in line with his idea that in education, to have a brand in education is to promote your institution's value.  More and more, the first contact made with a district is through the district's Web site. It's becoming more of a necessity to have a great Web site, with all the Web 2.0 bells and whistles and great organization, all while being easy to maintain, update and navigate. The goal of the SchoolE Awards is simple--

We want to recognize the districts that have risen to the challenge to put out great attractive, useful, and fluid Web sites that establish a district brand and enhance communication between the community and the school district.

 
Why Should You Nominate Your District?

Not only will your district receive recognition and title for winning the contest, the department in charge of the district Web site will receive donations and plaques to commemorate the achievement.  We will also send out press releases to major news sources both nationally and regionally (focused on your geographical area), along with exposure through social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and Blogger.

To select finalists for the contest, I have put together a fabulous industry expert panel, including Ken Royal himself, Shelly Terrell, Tom Whitby, and Steven Anderson. The finalists for the contest will receive feedback about their Web site from these panel members, ensuring that what's already good will continue to get better.

Our expert panel will select the 15 finalists for the contest.  From there, anyone can vote for your district, and the district with the most votes will be named the winner.

How Do I Nominate or Vote for My District?

Anyone can nominate or vote for a school district, as long as they have a valid e-mail address. All you have to do is simply go to the contest Web site (http://schoole.allofe.com), click on the red button that says "Nominate your District" and fill out the form.

Or...skip the contest site and click on this one!

The form requires the school district Web site address, the name and location of the school district, and a valid e-mail address (for fair voting practices). It will also ask if you would like to receive an e-mail reminder when voting opens. 

The more nominations your district receives, the more likely your district is to become a finalist. So spread the word!

Nominations are now open and will remain open until March 26. Voting will be open from April 5-16.  Winners will be announced on Monday, April 19.

What about the Competition?

Want to know who you're up against or just check out some of the other nominees? I will be updating a Top Nominees page every few days to show who's in the running to become a finalist. You can see the current top five by clicking here.

Questions?

If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them! Just send me an e-mail at kbrosious@allofe.com.  You can also check out the Contest FAQ page, or follow me on Twitter (@allofek12), where I am constantly sending out updates.

Embed YouTube Videos on Classroom Sites Using CMS

By Katie Brosious

How to Embed YouTube Videos on Classroom sites using CMS

We all know that Web 2.0 in the classroom is more and more becoming a necessity. Content management systems are a way to increase communication with your students outside the classroom. Previously, I stressed the importance and the benefits of using a CMS in the classroom. This post contains quick tutorial about one aspect of a CMS geared toward K-12 classrooms--SchoolEffects--works. SchoolEffects classroom sites are organized into simple, easy-to-use panels that you can move around simply by clicking and dragging. Creating a content- and Web 2.0-rich site is quick and easy. We’ve created some short tutorial videos to show you how easy SchoolEffects is to use. This episode explains how to embed a video into your classroom site.

Teacher Page Tips – Episode 2

Please feel free to leave us some feedback or ask questions on our blog at http://allofesolutions.blogspot.com, follow us on Twitter @allofe, or subscribe to our AllofESolutions YouTube Channel to check out more of our videos.

You can also check out our SchoolEffects Web site at www.schooleffects.com.

CMS Tools Help Build Web-Savvy Presence for Teachers

by Katie Brosious

The Internet is the main vehicle of communication in today’s society.  Students spend enormous amounts of time on the web every day, and there is a real opportunity for educators to use this to their advantage. 

The current generation of students is naturally web-savvy and will not be satisfied with websites of mediocre quality and substance.  Therein lays the challenge. Most web content management systems (CMS) and web tools available to teachers just don’t have the ease of use or comprehensive functionality to allow non-technical educators to quickly create and manage effective web-sites with rich content with minimal time or effort. Some of the challenges are as follows:

• Every teacher needs to be able to work on their own web sites, thus creating a need for a much more diverse set of users in terms of technical competency, interests and backgrounds.
• The functionality requirements to make a classroom site useful are much greater than the needs at the district or school level. Classroom sites need a greater feature set for educational content. This includes more Web 2.0 tools as well as complex multi-media functionality.
• Teachers need a lot of flexibility but at the same time it is important that there is consistency with the district’s site – that the district’s brand and image are maintained.
• Teachers have limited time. Therefore, it is even more important that the site management tools are intuitive and fun. Otherwise, sites can quickly become outdated and stale, thus defeating its very purpose of keeping the primary audience, such as parents and students, engaged.
• Teachers need a starting point, from which, in a matter of minutes they can have a base site that is attractive and useful. Without that, most teachers will not even get started, thus creating a situation within a district where only a small group of classrooms actually have any web content.

AllofE’s SchoolEffects, is a culmination of a decade of R&D. SchoolEffects is a vast and extensible platform with a very broad set of functionality.  Innovations, such as the panel based edit-in-place function, focus on implementing web 2.0 technology that empowers teachers to maintain engaging sights that become an extension of their classrooms.  Here, teachers can post assignments and lesson plans, share videos, podcasts or albums, maintain blogs and create a variety of rich content such as slideshows and tabbed panels, or reconfigure layouts of pages intuitively and quickly.

To see the level of flexibility a Content Management System like SchoolEffects offers, click on the links below to see how teachers are taking advantage of this opportunity:

• Example Site 1
• Example Site 2
• Example Site 3
• Example Site 4 

Or check it out at www.schooleffects.com.

LiveBinders: Easy "Trap and Keep" Online Teaching Binders

by Ken Royal

I've just checked out a site called LiveBinders—online versions of the old-fashioned 3-ring binders. There are some samples at the site, but the fastest way to see what they are, and how easily they work, is to view the 90-second video.

Binders can be made on-the-fly, directly from your browser—just by clicking a button in your bookmarks menu.  And yes, there’s a short video to do that as well. Best of all, LiveBinders is free.

Here’s the ticket: It takes a few minutes to learn, start, and create binders. Perfect for educators, who leery about learning technology—or spending more than 10 minutes to do it! This technology is based on something all teachers know how to do—collecting lesson resources—and saving them. It's an easy Web Tech entry for educators.

Find LiveBinders at http://www.livebinders.com/ to begin your own.