Still designing and Organizing my Website

Looking at various school district websites gave me many ideas I can use as I design my website.

The Fayette County Schools website adheres pretty well to the stated standards in the articles read for class in regards to navigability and ease of use.  The site uses neutral colors and leads with personal stories from around the district.  It offers RSS feeds and a site Search engine. (I’m thinking of incorporating one of those in my site now.) It has a nice FAQs section prominently placed and appears to be updated frequently. The overall look of the site is uniform though each school’s individual site does not conform to the same standards for color/graphics/updating etc. The district would probably benefit from a content manager in that regard. Other than the patronizing tips to parents (Eating breakfast or lunch with your child at school will make them feel special), I feel this district gets a lot of things  right.

 On Organizing my website-

 My teaching units are organized by historical periods so I think I’ll stick to that method of organization (Time) for my website. This time-based organization also adheres to my underlying paradigms. My site is geared towards other drama teachers and secondary-level drama students not theatre-goers or professional actors who would benefit from an entirely different method of organization.

I like the idea of mapping the browsing flow of the site with post-it notes. It reminds me of the old days before word-processing when “cut and paste” was  actually “cut” and “paste”. Because of the educational nature of my planned site, organizing it in a linear sequence with supporting digressions makes the most sense.

Here's a rough initial plan on wire frame.

https://cacoo.com/diagrams/GK73afeZmBZ0VMfc

I liked Weebly a lot when we used it for a class assignment, but I wasn't sure it allowed for enough customization. So I've been playing around with Wix.com. I like how easy it is to customize a template or add a feature (Facebook Like button,Live Twitter feed, opportunities to go mobile or add e-commerce). They offer free hosting and actually have theatre-related templates to advertise shows or post your resume show biz-style with imdb and show links! They had lots of examples to explore. The various features and the clean looking  designs available will give my site more appeal and keep it from looking quite as "educational".