Congratulations! You’re an integral part of SLPS’s main communication tool to the public! It is very important to keep information up to date on our websites. When visitors come to our websites, they expect to see the latest information. It is better to delete old information from the site than to have a page with old information.
This brings us to the first topic:
1. Review of District Policy and Guidelines
2. Register as a Webmaster
All new school webmasters should add themselves to the official webmaster list (so we know who is the current person for that website). Please sign up here (this will also give you the instructions for registering on your school website for access:
https://www.stlucie.k12.fl.us/webmaster-signup
3. Familiarize yourself with the Web Design Training Website (that’s this site!)
At the top of this site, you’ll see links to the main areas:
- Courses – Online Courses on specific topics that can be accessed at any time.
- Workshops – Live training scheduled at various times.
- Resources – Links to various websites by topic.
- Knowledgebase – Tips and Information on various topics, including social media use.
4. Review the website style guide (Yes I know it’s huge! Skimming is okay!)
Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites – explains established design principles and covers all aspects of web design—from planning to production to maintenance. The guide also shows how these principles apply in web design projects whose primary concerns are information design, interface design, and efficient search and navigation.
The basic course can be completed in three 1-hour sessions. These sessions can be done on your own, or through a guided workshop (please check the Workshops tab for the schedule). Also, you do not need to take the whole course if you don’t want to! Review the areas of interest or what you need help with.
The suggested tracks are:
Session 1
Session 2
- StLucie7 Theme
- Appearance
- Using WP Bakery
- Using the Standard Visual Editor
- Links
- Replacing Files
- Navigation Menus
- Sliders and News
- Plugins
- Widgets
Session 3
Our main theme:
- StLucie7 http://the7.io/
Tips for Attending a Training Session:
Gather ideas for your site (find some websites that you like and make note of the features that you like on them).
Gather content for your site (we will not create any pages for content that you do not have AHEAD of time, we’re web designers not fortune tellers!) Your content can be in any format and probably will be a big mess of many sources. That’s okay. We can work with word docs, pdf docs, images, notes. But it’s best if any hand written notes or content are typed into something ahead of time, such as notepad or word. Preferably notepad.
Images – You’ll need a lot of them. You need high quality, large size images. At a minimum we will need 5-6, and if you want to get fancy, plan on around 20. These images are for your layout only, this is not content related. I’d stay away from current students (this can instantly date your site) unless they are abstract or creative shots where the focus is not specific students but what they are doing. The exception are when you have a really nice shot. Really nice shots are always usable, despite the circumstance (as long as you have photo clearance). Please don’t steal your images off Google. Enlist some want-to-be-photographers! There are also some wonderful free image sites: https://pixabay.com/ or https://unsplash.com/ You can also make brilliant looking graphics on Canva https://canva.com/, and we have this resource free of charge for the district, simply login with your district credentials for a free pro account!
Access to your site – We will be jumping in quickly. You should already be able to login to your school website and have at least blindly clicked around, wondering what all those confusing choices can do for you. Be bold, be daring! I promise, it will all make more sense when we’re done.
Overview of Training Videos – It does help to have gone through some of the training videos. Even if all they do is cause you to have more questions. Any sort of exposure to wordpress or websites in advance will help you get started and more importantly, understanding more quickly.
