Book about school sites. Why design a website? Information Addressees

Why design a website?

The first question, of course, will be: “Why design? You can find 3-4 school sites on the Internet that you like, and on this basis you can already give the programmer a task. ” With all the seeming logicality of this approach, we will have to consider so try to convince.

A school website, like any other, is a complex information system. When creating it, it is necessary to take into account and analyze a whole complex of factors: who will be the consumer of the information on your site, what really should be placed on the site from school life, what will be its structure, etc.
It also makes sense to have clear answers to the following questions:

• Do we need a school website at all? Can we explain exactly why, or just “to be”?
• Is there anything in our educational practice that cannot be realized without the existence of a site, and if not, then why should we create a site?
• What will we get with the advent of the site and what will we lose at the same time?
• Do we have enough assets (financial, human, organizational) not only for its creation, but also for support, development?

Why so hard? After all, you can take a pen and paper, draw a certain primary list of menu items on the site and start program implementation. And if you need to add something, then over time you can turn it on.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. With this approach, several adverse outcomes are possible.
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First, you did not answer the most important question, without which a literate school website cannot exist: what is the uniqueness, the peculiarity of your school, what will distinguish your site from dozens and hundreds of others? There is no answer here - your site will be a clone of the standard structure of the school web resource, the site “generally”, it will not be able to provide the user with anything special, concrete, useful *.

* At first glance, it may seem that the question is unimportant, especially in light of the fact that dozens of sites resemble each other. But if it were so, then the problem of creating a school website would not exist at all - one could offer an optimal structure that is uniform for everyone and stop there. Meanwhile, there is something that distinguishes many and many school sites in terms of structure, appearance, and information feed. What? Just features of the OS that represents the site, and they must be well aware of.

Secondly, in any structure of a complex system (and the one we are creating is exactly such) there will be blocks in which sections appear, and in them, in turn, headings. And the creation of such a multi-level hierarchy (tree) is a matter of a holistic view of the system. If, having thoughtfully built it out, you will immediately begin to implement, difficulties may arise. With the advent of new elements that you find necessary to include in the site menu, blocks of uneven size will appear, the same thing under different names will simultaneously appear in several parts of the structure, and users are unlikely to catch your logic of information placement. As a result, we get a site with confusing, inconvenient navigation, in which the visitor is simply “lost”. Such an inconvenient site is unlikely to be actively visited.

And finally, the last. The site is not just once and forever created system. Whatever you come up with at the initial stage, in half a year or a year there will appear elements of the structure and information that you didn’t think about and which do not fit into the initially created frames. In a thoughtful, flexible and open to update structure, new elements will be able to integrate easily without disrupting the common logic. In the formulated hastily, they will be like a passenger, flying after the warning “Be careful, the doors are closing!” Into the “rubber” car, where there is nowhere to get up. Probably, these arguments are quite enough for the reader to be convinced: website design is an important issue, the solution of which will largely determine the further development of the resource.

You can start designing with the following steps. First of all, it is necessary to determine the circle of people who will be engaged in this design. At the first stage, perhaps, there will be quite a small group, which will include the director, deputy for OIA (BP), deputy for IT (if any), teacher of computer science. First, the group members will have to “look around”. Why is this group essentially “administrative” in composition? Yes, because it is the administrative team that owns the entirety of information about the school, and the teachers, as well as the support staff, are only informed within their competence. That is why, at the first stage - the design stage - those who have concentrated all the information about the institution, about different areas and aspects of its activities should work. It is clear that the administrative staff in any school is very busy, so this work should be made in advance in their personal work plans.

For a short time, each member of the design team independently reviews the school websites that exist today. The easiest way to do this is to type a simple query in the Yandex search system: “school website”. Check out 10–20 different school sites to make an impression at the level “like - dislike”. Since within a few years a certain tradition of the creation of DU sites has already been formed to a certain extent, you will have a primary idea of ​​what you want to see on the site of your school in the future.

The result of this work should be the answers to two questions: “ Why does our school need a website? "And" What can our school get due to the presence of a good site? »Pay attention to the markedness of the word" our ". I repeat, you are not creating a school website at all, but a unique website of your school.

Accordingly, it is designed to reflect not only the typical activities inherent in each OU, but also the unique thing that distinguishes your particular school from others.

When everyone answers this question for themselves, the group members need to reconvene and exchange views, identify “overlapping areas” and come to an initial idea of ​​how the school website is seen.

Information Addressees

After formulating the initial idea of ​​the school site, we recommend that you refer to the informational recipients of the system being created, to understand who will be the users of your site. This must be done without fail, because only a resource that satisfies the information requests of those for whom it was created can be recognized as successful. Adequate understanding of the specifics of information requests of the recipients of the system - this is the way out to the structure of your future site.

* Do not blame the authors for banality: it would not be worth talking about this if dozens of school websites did not pass before your eyes without any targeting and taking into account the specifics of visitors. To whom they turn is a mystery not only for visitors, but, apparently, for authors.

Let's try to reflect on this by highlighting the main user groups and, if necessary, differentiating them into subgroups.

It seems to us that informational recipients are the five main groups of visitors *: parents, teachers, students, managers of different levels, partners (the sequence of recipients in this list is unimportant.). Let us consider each of these groups in more detail, because it is not enough to confine ourselves to simply stating this list: in itself, it gives little.

* In our conversation, the concept of "informational recipient" and "visitor" are not synonymous. Creating a site with a “user in general” orientation is meaningless and impossible: anyone can enter the site. Another thing is the user we are targeting, to whom we want to convey information, on whose response we are counting. This is exactly the information recipient.

Parent. Obviously, this is perhaps the most difficult of all recipients. Why?

First, he is out of the system (non-professional in the educational context), his view of the school is not identical to the pedagogical view, because he looks at us from the position of the comfort of the system for his particular child, from the point of view of his own ideas about the due, which are formed by his own - unique - experience.

Secondly, this addressee is not homogeneous; on the basis of this, it is difficult to unambiguously determine his information requests. At the same time for us he is one of the most important recipients. Therefore, let us try to reflect on what different groups of parents of our students — real and potential — would like to know about school.

First of all, you need to understand that the information requests of parents whose children are enrolled in elementary school, and parents whose children attend high school will be very different from each other. For parents of kids, as experience shows, safety and comfort issues are very important. Parents of high school students are more interested in educational prospects: where graduates of recent years have entered, how did they pass the Unified State Exam, etc.

However, there is something in common that excites everyone and always, this is the content of education in school. And we, as a rule, are not able to answer these questions clearly and intelligibly. We are accustomed to certain stamps, our professional cliches ("educational program of basic general education with in-depth study of subjects of the natural science cycle based on information and communication technologies", "use of interactive forms of education", "high school profiling", "formation of functional literacy and general cultural competence ", etc.). For an ordinary parent, even with a high level of education, there is nothing behind these words, they are like in a foreign language. Such information does not bring together (and awareness is a step towards understanding, and through it - towards rapprochement), but divides, annoying with incomprehensibility. Therefore, it is worth talking about the content of education in a school with parents, to move away from the professional language. There is one good principle for presenting information about the content of education for parents. It can be built by telling your parents that a child who has completed a specific stage of education in your school will know and be able to. Moreover, in this way not only information on basic education, but also on additional education can be presented. Of course, it is not at all necessary to write that, at the end of the 7th grade, the child in Russian should know all parts of speech, be able to isolate the participial and participial revolutions, etc., - and so on for each subject studied. To get an idea of ​​the standard, “typical” requirements, you can direct the parent to the official websites, which contain the requirements of the mandatory minimum content in the subjects of the curriculum, subject programs (of course, after orienting it on a number of questions: what subject programs does the school use, what is the the actual structure of the program, etc.) Without repeating common points, it makes sense to present either the non-standard results that the school gets in the process of studying school subjects. s, such as adjusting the content and teaching methods, or those items and activities to which special attention is paid to your school.

What is specifically meant here? Suppose that in your school special attention is paid to the subjects of the natural science cycle, you cooperate with research organizations dealing with environmental issues, and you organize internships for high school students. These aspects of educational activities are atypical and, therefore, give certain results beyond those assumed by the basic program. That's about them and write. We emphasize: not only about additional opportunities for students, but also about the results that we get as a result of using these opportunities. These results can be associated with a higher level of knowledge, and with the formation of subject and above-subject skills, and with vocational guidance.

Rationally provide such information on the expected learning outcomes of the education levels.

In general, it is very important to be able to simply and clearly present the "highlights" of your educational program. You are actively using non-traditional forms of education (projects, collective ways of learning (CSR)), you start early to form a research culture for children, focus on the development of logical thinking, ecological behavior, communicative culture, you have an established system of additional education that allows you to identify and implement creative the potential of each child, to introduce him to the values ​​of culture, - write about it, but write simply, explain in intelligible language so that it is understandable sionalu

What do all the parents want to know? They are certainly interested in the conditions of education, which include security, leisure activities, dining, medical care, the state of the library and media library, the availability of equipment for the educational process, etc.

It is very important for parents to know to whom and for what questions at school you can contact, which deputy director supervises which issues, how the escort service works (psychologist, speech therapist, social teacher).

The parents are also interested in the traditions of the school, the rules and requirements that apply to children, because this is in many ways the face of the school and the key to successful adaptation of the child to the conditions of learning.

We emphasize once again: it is very difficult to simulate the whole variety of parental information requests. Try to identify them really. To do this, you can simply at parental meetings offer a questionnaire with questions about what information about school parents lack, what information is important for them, what they would like to know, on the basis of what knowledge about school they made their choice when they brought their child here ( This question is especially important to ask parents in elementary school: for them it is very fresh and relevant memories. Such a survey will allow you to identify parent information requests and create an adequate structure of the section of the site, addressed to parents.

Pupils. This group is also heterogeneous: pupils of the school - while highlighting specific age groups, pupils preparing for enrollment (meaning, of course, above all, high school students, “applicants” of elementary school will be treated with the group “parents”), graduates of the school .

Let's start with those who are directly in school. Pupils are a group that is inside the school, they basically know a lot, and at the same time, the range of information that they possess is usually limited to certain limits - class, parallels. In addition, information comes to them from other sources - from class teachers, teachers, on school radio, from information boards, etc. What do they want to know about? Does it make sense for them in the site as a source of information? Of course, it is more rational to ask them about it themselves - just like parents.

However, here you can present some of the most general considerations. First of all, they relate to the system of additional education. Choosing a section, circle, club, special course, the child, as a rule, is not sufficiently informed. This information "failure" can help overcome the site. For example, you can provide a variety of information about additional education: photos, reviews of those involved in a particular children's association, group, studios, sections, descriptions of certain aspects of the activity, products of the activities of certain associations where possible. In this case, the child choosing a circle, club or section will have the opportunity to make the choice more consciously - on the basis of sufficiently complete information.

Another area related to the system of additional education is the information about the possibilities of obtaining it outside the school. The site may contain a list of circles of the regional House of Children's Art, sports school sections, district children's clubs, etc. This valuable information is often closed to children, and a school alone can hardly satisfy all of the various children's interests.

The site can regularly post information about the achievements of students. Here you can represent the winners of competitions, sports, creative competitions. Such a section that promotes achievement, representing those who strive for positive self-realization, has a great educational value.

Another area that is relevant especially for high school students is information about exams and intermediate certification. In a possible section of the site “Preparing for exams” you can place exam tickets, options for last year's test papers, results of passing exams last year’s issue (including the EGE). If there is a test system in high school, then you can post on the site a list of offsets (for example, for half a year) and questions and tasks for them. Elements of distant learning can appear on the website in the section “Preparing for ...” (recommendations on preparing for writing, tests, written surveys).

Another interesting section is “Professional Consultation” . Here can be placed relevant for 9-graders information about specialized classes in schools that are nearby *. And high school students will be interested if the site just appears links to universities or other information about the possibilities of continuing education.

* Of course, not every director who reads these lines will respond to such a proposal. But if you think not only about preserving the completeness of the school, but also about the student, this section becomes meaningful.

If we talk about the information addressed to those students who are going to go to school, then in some way it will overlap with information for parents: I mean the story about the specifics of the school’s educational program, the results of the exams and the enrollment of graduates. Here, just as for parents, the availability of language, concreteness and accuracy of information is important, since the choice will be made largely based on what you tell about yourself. It is possible that this will be the same text, which will be indicated by a link from different sections.

In addition, if the school assumes entrance examinations for future students, then you can post last year’s written work options or questions for an oral interview so that your “applicants” have the opportunity to prepare.

The third information addressee will be the managers . Formally, it would be possible to divide this group into three blocks: a) administration of its OS ; b) higher authorities ; c) administrators of other schools . But in reality, representatives of subgroups a) and b) are unlikely to be consumers of school site information. It is hard to imagine that the director and his deputies will choose the space of the school site (even if it is closed from prying eyes) for working communication: there are many other more familiar ways to do this *. Also, if you descend from heaven to earth, it is difficult to imagine today the workers of district and city administrative structures, who would be guided by the information presented on the school’s website, to assess the quality of its work - they prefer other information channels. Thus, from the group of managers, only the third group remains - the administrators of other OU, your colleagues, to whom the information on your site may be of interest.

* Here we meet with the moment to which I want to pay special attention. The site is only a tool that can and will work in certain situations. Do not try to fit into it everything that comes into my head, according to the principle "and let it be, maybe it will come in handy." If the goal for which one or another element of the site is created can be successfully achieved by other means - traditional, more familiar - ways, then this section has no meaning and does not need to be included. It would not be worth talking about this if the violation of this principle did not occur too often.

The scope of their interests can be various documentation that regulates the activities of your institution (educational program, curriculum, copyright and experimental programs, development program, various positions, plans, work analysis, local acts, etc.) Also interesting are the general points related to school organization. life (services, structures, forms of organization of the educational process, the content of experimental work, etc.)

Thus, a school website can be a tool for popularizing your institution in a professional environment.

Educators. This group also needs to be differentiated: a) pedagogical staff of its educational institution ; b) teachers from other schools (professional community) . On the one hand, obviously the teachers of their school should to a certain extent be represented on the school website, on the other - they are consumers of the school website information *.

* There is quite an interesting observation: very often when a website appears at a school, teachers are interested in studying its pages in search of references to themselves and their students. This can be a good catalyst for creating specialized "teacher" sections on the site.

First of all, the website of the school for teachers can and should be the entry point into the information space of the Network. Unfortunately, we have to admit that for the most part, educators today are not the most active and experienced users. It is therefore very useful if the site regularly contains information addressed to subject teachers: links to interesting educational and other resources that can be used to prepare for lessons, dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books, as well as to contests in which the teacher can participate independently or with your students. The teacher also needs regulatory information - on programs, textbooks, exam organization forms, and so on. Links to the educational press will also be useful - those interesting publications that may be relevant to the teacher will create for him the opportunity to participate in discussions, exchange views with his colleagues various important issues of concern today pedagogical community. Such information is very important for enhancing the professional competence of the teacher as a basis for self-education and for stimulating his creative activity, creating conditions for participating in professional competitions, preparing publications, etc. This activity contributes to the formation of an adequate self-assessment of the teacher who sees what they are doing and how his colleagues in different regions of Russia, and in some cases - increasing his self-esteem. By the way, experience shows that St. Petersburg teachers are poorly represented in online professional competitions, their activity is low - primarily due to lack of information, and the school website can stimulate this activity.

Another interesting and important point. The school site can become a kind of library of educational, research and project activities. This is possible if the projects created by schoolchildren, high-quality essays and other works will be posted on the site. , - ( , , , , , ). , . .

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This list of potential recipients - consumers of information from your site in any case does not claim to be exhaustive. It is possible that your list will be somewhat different from the one presented above. Here, the specifics of your school play an important role - its location, the social composition of students, the profile, the “raisins” of the school and other factors. Some blocks of this scheme will be important to you, something will seem optional, something will be omitted. Perhaps, you see your informational recipients in a different way or differently imagine the content of that information which will be relevant for them. This is a normal process of developing your own, unique for your OS, site structure. Here another is important:

• when designing a site, it is necessary to clearly and accurately identify those to whom it will be addressed;
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. — . , , , ( , ) . , for each of the groups of information consumers. Working groups present to the development team their versions of information requests and the intended menu structure. That structure, which is obtained as a result of this work, is the most comprehensive list of menu items of the site of yours , and not of an abstract school. From it, it is already possible to formulate a list of components that are necessary for inclusion in the structure of the site.