44 replies to this topic

[A Finemess]

Having checked out a school website which is linked to this site, I am full of admiration for the teachers (and pupils) concerned. However, I wonder if it is wise to include pictures of teachers and their names and some personal details on such sites? My employing authority would not allow this in the case of pupils, is it sensible for teachers to do so? The WWW is an awful big entity and there are some funny people about ... or am I just a worrywort?

[Dafydd Humphreys]

Whose site?

[Andrew Field]

I take it you are talking about the Neale-Wade school site which I created:
http://www.neale-wade.cambs.sch.uk

The issue of pictures and information has been taken extremely seriously and I must admit to being concerned about your concerns!

To start with I established strict policies in conjunction with the National Grid for Learning and Government guidelines. The policy we follow is fully compliant with the Becta guidance. Our policy can be found at:
http://www.neale-wad...itepolicies.htm

The 'superhighway safety guide' has been issued to all schools and is available online at http://safety.ngfl.gov.uk/. I've actually been part of the evaluation and reviewing of this policy and the related site. The guidelines go into detail about all aspects of internet use, with specific information on school websites.

The policies are actually quite simple - you never have a photo with a pupil's name. If you name the pupil, you have no individual photo. If you have a photo, you don't name the pupil.

The Neale-Wade site goes further. We never have a photo of an individually identifiable child - with or without permission of parents. I've even added a silly function to stop people right clicking and saving the images. This can be got round, but it serves to remind those messing about.

Regards names, photos and personal details of staff, this again has been looked into extremely carefully. When I was designing the site, I had it in mind to use the small photos of school activities (as found across the site) but not use individual photos of staff. In discussion with Senior Management, they wanted photos of staff. With further discussion it was agreed to have photos of heads of department and faculties, together with Senior Management.

The main reason I wasn't keen to put photos of staff was that I didn't want to have to keep updating them. However, there were, of course, the concerns about personal privacy and potential for misuse of the photos.

Every single photo of a member of staff has been vetted and approved by that member of staff. Before any content goes online a member of senior management checks it. The information that accomanies a photo is again fully authorised and checked.

In discussions this week it was proposed to put a full list of staff with responsibilites online. It was decided that this wasn't needed - but this again goes to show how every single aspect of content for the Neale-Wade site is very, very carefully examined.

I am interested in comment that your "employing authority would not allow this in the case of pupils, is it sensible for teachers to do so". I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

-> No information goes online without the permission of the individual.
-> We stick to - and go further than - the government guidelines for internet safety
-> Yet we try to show the school in the most positive light!

Many people criticise the current government guidelines as being too restrictive. They say that pictures and accompanying text - including close-ups and individual photos - are in the local paper every single week, so what's the difference with a school website.

I think the government guidelines on these issues are actually just about correct.

However, if you feel there are problems with the site, please let me know. I have gone to great - and I mean many, many hours of work - to make the Neale-Wade site what it is, and it is of enormous concern that there is a problem.

[A Finemess]

No, it's not the NW site! I've not seen that yet! But if it is possible for casual surfers to identify individual teachers at an individual school because photo's appear on any school site with the teacher identified by name then that is surely best avoided? After all, the pupils and parents at the school know the teachers already or can get to know them in the usual ways via the school. What is to be gained by identifying the teachers by name? I'm not criticising anyone. I just take the view : "better safe than sorry"! I would suggest that the "pupil protocol" Andrew referred to should apply to staff also i.e. a photo is fine and a name is fine but not a photo which allows the individual to be identified.

[Nichola Boughey]

My website also identifies the History teachers by names.

We went to great lengths to ensure that pupil names remain anonymous but the Senior members of staff agreed that it would be permissable for teachers to have their details on the website - of course the teacher's permission was attained first.

It seems to me that we have to assume at times that people are good at heart.

I suppose everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

NB No offense meant by this reply.

[A Finemess]

And none taken Nichola. You're right about people too. Unfortunately, it's not the good folk who cause problems in life ...

[Andrew Field]

Unfortunately, it's not the good folk who cause problems in life ...

You are right about this, but I think it is too far not to have teacher names on a school website.

If the teacher is happy, I see no problem. Companies frequently have names - and normally contact e-mail addresses on their websites. The purpose of our website is to promote the school in a good light, and as our Principal kindly reminds us, the staff are the best possible resource.



When I first went to the school I had my photo taken and it appeared in the local paper with my full name. Now, I obviously realised the photo was being taken, but it was never checked with me.

I think it is right to draw comparisons between the website and a local paper. You get the local paper pushed through the door every week, and so staff names and photos appear. On the website you have to physically go to it, and even then you get less information than is in the local paper. Anyone wierd enough to mess around with this, is going to be just as able to cut a photo out of a paper.

I think your concerns are unwarranted.

But anyway, have you had a look at the Neale-Wade website yet? http://www.neale-wade.co.uk

[neil mcdonald]

Hi there - God! I've missed the internet over the summer - Move house, new job etc!!!

Anyway I'd liek to pick your brains about website design for a Departmental website - what is the best course of action regardign planning and purchases etc. I intend to use Frontpage as it appears straight forward but i want to get into the problems faced by designers out there. Luckily my last school had Digitalbrain saw it was all templates (It may sound like cheating but it was lots easier!)

Good to be back in the land of the holy Internet.

Neil

[Dan Moorhouse]

Some of the features included by Frontpage are not universally supported by hosts. Most of the decent hosts DO allow Front page add ons etc. though.

If the sites to work well keep the navigation as simple as possible. Start off with one template that can be used to create all of the pages, makes later updates a doddle... I didn't start my site like that and had to spend weeks putting the content into a template when I realised that the site was becoming large and in need of an update. (If you need to know how to create a template in Frontpage let us know)

Start small. Identify one area that you've got lots of content, worksheets, links etc for and build that unit. Test that out and ask the forum for constructive criticism, you'll soon find out which bits work and which bits could be developed further.

[Andrew Field]

Dan's said it all really.

Setting up a site around a basic framework is the best idea by far - giving you the flexibility to develop within and beyond it when you wish to. I fortunately did this largely by mistake when I was creating schoolhistory.

There are loads of excellent department websites which show off good practice - and all their creators are regular users of the forum.

In terms of purchases it depends where your cash is coming from. If it is yourself then Frontpage is an investment, but probably a worthwhile one - £120 ish , I think. If your school is paying then you could explore a few more of the more professional, expensive programs - Macromedia Studio MX (at about £250ish) is a great option.

[Dafydd Humphreys]

Hello Neil - hope the new school is going fine.

I use Frontpage on my humble effort after using a sitebuilder template style programme. Its far quicker and seems okay.

I'd tinker about with the style first - get used to using the tables, cells etc, background colours etc. I started off trying one of the Frontpage templates but amended it until I was happy.

I don't know if I am doing it in a long-winded way after reading Dan's post. I tried to learn CSS style sheets but hit a brick wall, so I COPY the html of one page, and paste it into a blank html page to make similar-looking pages. Is there a quicker way?

Before you splash out on Frontpage, 'have a word' with your ICT manager. Hint hint.

[Stephen Drew]

Good advice

[Dafydd Humphreys]

A word as in 'Hi Ted { }, can you tell me whether you'd recommend Frontpage2000?'

Not to be confused with - Dear Mr/Mrs ................ please tell your children to stop bringing in the dodgy CD-Rs which contain the full Macromedia suite. They may only cost 50p in Islamabad, and I appreciate you are entitled to decide to bring them back from your holidays, along with the bag full of brand-new PS2 games for £1.00 each and the latest unreleased DVDs (with laughing Taiwanese cinema audience noises). But that Macromedia suite is well worth spending £900. Far better value than two weeks holiday...



edited to add - I think more Citizenship lessons and less Entrepeneurship lessons are needed in schools.

and you probably should delete this as well

[Stephen Drew]

Good advice

[Andrew Field]

I'm sure Dafydd is referring to his school's Microsoft Open Licence that they obviously have, covering all employees.

Dafydd your way of creating pages is basically the same as using a template - you've got your frame and then you just create new pages and save them.

The way I work is to have a page called something like 'blank.html' and then save it as something else when I've added some content. Creating a template would mean you just have this frame saved to load up as a default document - a bit similar to the way you can have template files in Word.

The tricky thing is if you want to update the entire site - one good way is to build your page calling the parts of the page from different files. This isn't using frames, just getting the standard page to include common elements - this way you can just change one file and the entire site updates.

If you are using a template correctly with Frontpage, I think you can get this to automatically update all the pages. I know in Dreamweaver which I use relatively often, this is a key way of developing a wider site. I was getting some pupils to design a template after school today for a site they are going to design. They were delighted when they found they could create the design once and then just add content.



Actually there is one great benefit if you build a site using Frontpage or Dreamweaver. You create your file, right click on it and select upload (or equivalent) and then it's online, with no involvement with further programs. For Frontpage you need FP extensions on the server, but Dreamwever does the business whatever server you are using.