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Help needed to bring school into digital age....

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  • 21-10-2012 11:05pm
    #1
    Gergirl
    Registered Users Posts: 11 ✭


    Hi folks,
    Im not sure if I'm posting this in the right place (have tried mobile application too ) but hope you can help me.

    I am trying to do some work for my local primary school bringing them into the digital age.....

    My first step is looking at how they communicate with teachers, parents and pupils-right now there are lots of paper notes; text messages and a sad website.

    Do you think I should set up a Facebook page or would I be better off with a new site courtesy of Wordpress? Or should I look at some form of an app?

    The big thing that is costing them money at the moment as far as I can see is text. Every year they are spending about €1,000 just on texts: saying stuff like cake sake on on fri; school closed because of snow; school finishing early today etc etc...
    There is also the thing of these paper notes in the kids bags-I think it would be great if the teacher could just type up the note and it would be published to all relevant parents in some cheap and easy manner....

    All help, thoughts, comments greatly appreciated,

    Many thanks, ger


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    #2
    squod
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,704 ✭✭✭squod


    Sounds like you're sending 10,000 texts per year? This place will do that for €300.

    http://www.createtext.ie/pricing


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    #3
    paulmclaughlin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,299 ✭✭✭paulmclaughlin


    squod wrote: »
    Sounds like you're sending 10,000 texts per year? This place will do that for €300.

    http://www.createtext.ie/pricing

    Cost including VAT €369.00


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    #4
    squod
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,704 ✭✭✭squod


    200 odd texts free though!


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    #5
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    A Facebook page would make the most sense for announcements, you can set up a page rather than your standard account and that page would be linked to your account and have administrators like other teachers and ye should all take the time to actually administer the page the same way mods do here on boards to make sure no one is abusing the page or anyone on it. You also can work under the assumption most people are using it.

    The school itself could have it's own network and website, neither of these things are horribly difficult to achieve. The students themselves could easily learn how to design and maintain both and I would assume the state can provide some sort of help even if it's just how to rather than financial.

    If they had those things they could avoid printing costs by making everything available through the website, I'd assume the texts they'd be printing don't change much year from year so it's only the initial setup thats labour intensive. I'd put texts and the schools actual work and protected content on this site rather than facebook, there's a concern over ownership with everything you put on Facebook so I tend to put articles on the website and link to it on Facebook.

    For building a website you have software like Joomla, it's a content management system that some of the biggest sites use. Basically it works off a database and rather than make pages in the traditional manner (a lot like using publisher) you create a front end (page) that calls to the database for information and presents it in a pleasing way. The possibilities with joomla are limitless and don't have to cost anything it's open source and free for the most part.


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    #6
    Allyall
    Registered Users Posts: 10,381 ✭✭✭✭Allyall


    Regarding the Texts. Why not just get an 02/Vodafone/3 etc.. SIM card and send the texts for free from their website?
    You can send 250/300 free texts per month, and send them all at once.
    If that's not enough, get 2 SIM cards, and do the same.
    So you could have 08XXXXXXX1 and 08XXXXXXX2.
    Send the texts from those two numbers, that would be 500/600 free texts a month.

    Also, with so many people having a smartphone these days, you could just email them.

    Also these guys seem to be getting a lot of publicity lately. They may be paying for it, i don't know anything about them, but i keep hearing or seeing them being mentioned.
    http://schoolsites.ie/


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    #7
    B1gft
    Registered Users Posts: 163 ✭✭B1gft


    If i was you, I would use WordPress for the general news and updates. i would put a social plugin on the site, so all posts can be shared on facebook, Twitter ect, with a push of a button. I would also set up an RSS feed. I would put on a newsletter plugin, mailchimp is the best. So newsletters could be sent out to the parents. So this way they get the information four odd ways.

    You could go further and put buddypress on (which is free and again is just a plugin) Make a group for each class, where only that class would see the postings.(If you wanted it that way) or keep it open but only members of a particular group can write in that group. That would be like each class has their own part of the site. The kids could upload paintings, photos ect.
    You could also have a group just for the parents,(again you could have it private, away from the kids seen it) I would set it up that any new posts the parents are notified by email. Also the admin of the site can send private messages to any member of a group (Parents)

    Just a few ideas, they are easy to do. If you need a hand and you are not charging the school for your services, send me a PM and I can walk you through it, FOC.


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    #8
    Gergirl
    Registered Users Posts: 11 ✭Gergirl


    Folks,

    Thank you all so much for your advice - you've given me lots to research and figure out. I'm just a parent here trying to help and do something positive. I really appreciate this and will be back with phase 2 of questions......once I have all this homework done

    Thanks again :0)


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    #9
    syklops
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    Gergirl wrote: »
    Folks,

    Thank you all so much for your advice - you've given me lots to research and figure out. I'm just a parent here trying to help and do something positive. I really appreciate this and will be back with phase 2 of questions......once I have all this homework done

    Thanks again :0)

    What is the goal? Its all very well saying your bringing them into the digital age, but until the goal is accurately defined, we wont know what we are aiming for. If its just school announcements, texts seem like the easiest option. Not everyone has facebook, whereas 99% of parents will have mobiles. Just contact the mobile operator and have them set up a plan with free unlimited texts but expensive weekend calls.

    edit: if this is what you end up doing, dont tell the operator you're a school. Tell them you're a contractor, but you work oncall at weekends, so you can expense expensive calls at the weekend, but you like to text alot during the week, or some other similar lie. Tell them you're a school and they will see $$$.


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    #10
    BailMeOut
    Registered Users Posts: 2,986 ✭✭✭BailMeOut


    I did this exact thing for my kids school. I use blogger with feed burner to push school news each day via email. I also have dlvr.it setup to push the same data to the school Facebook and twitter sites. At same time use google apps for education for school email, calendar and doc sharing.

    All done at no cost (other than domain name).

    School saves a fortune on paper, printing and texts now.

    PM if you want more details.


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    #11
    Allyall
    Registered Users Posts: 10,381 ✭✭✭✭Allyall


    Another alternative is CMS Made Simple. http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/
    It's very easy to use, and once it has been set up, anyone can login with their details and post a notice on the noticeboard. It looks nice too, but mainly, it's easy to use, and it's free.
    All the Documentation/information needed can be found on the bottom of their website.

    There's themes to style it, and forums for any help you may need. (There are also forums and loads of help for joomla, but that might be a bit more advanced for you, i don't know.)


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