school website this week:
I looked back at some of my previous sites, and I had a thought. It's
not uncommon for these sites to have 1500 visitors and 10,000 page
views a day, day after day, for five to seven years before the next
renewal. This new site is already pumping out alerts and
subscriptions and calendar feeds to users.
It crossed my mind that we can put a lot of effort into a play or
speakers series event, but it is over in a few nights. Same for a
monthly newsletter=96 read for a few days and then tossed. Same for a
graduation=96 big event, good memories, over in a day.
A web page is used and used and used. It's also a living document=96 we
have literally made tens of thousands of little changes in just three
days after it's launch, and we have tens of thousands to go before I
can rest about it's launch. There is no other school document that
clearly compares to it=96 a view book may be done every five years, but
it doesn't change and it isn't viewed every day by so many different
people.
Anyway, this is all about the long haul. A friend on this list once
told me that all technology decisions should be based on what is in
the long-term interests of the school. That is what a web page is
about. It's not about a big one night event that's over the next day.
It's a long-range investment, needing lots of care and feeding, but it
serves the school 24=D77, day in and day out.
Jim Heynderickx
Director of Technology
American School in London
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