The Key to Education Web Design

Web design for educational establishments does not simply involve designing a site that looks good: it involves creating something that is genuinely useful for staff, students and parents. A school’s website is the perfect online tool that can be used to do far more than provide simple static information. It can be a place where information is exchanged and through which people can communicate. The benefits for a school can also be enormous in terms of time and cost savings.

Image Courtesy: stjosephshighschool.in

Incorporate a VLE into your school website
The key to a successful educational website is to incorporate a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). This is a set of tools that can be built into your website and which allow people to not just visit your site and access basic information, but to also perform various actions.
Teachers, parents and students can all make use of it, and it can help you to achieve far more through your website.

Benefits of a VLE
There are numerous benefits that you can enjoy through incorporating a VLE. Some of these include:

• your school can save money by reducing administration costs and the cost of sending physical notifications to parents and students;
• staff can save time performing repetitive tasks that can be completed electronically;
• teachers can send resources and notes to students out of school hours;
• teachers can also share information amongst each other, such as lesson plans and resources;
• students can access grades and test results online, and their parents can also check the progress of their children;
• secure areas can be set up to communicate privately between teachers and students;
• registration can be taken electronically, simplifying the tracking of truancy;
• parents can check homework requirements for their children;
• they can also submit consent forms, book meetings, pay for trips and request holidays;
• students can access information relating to extracurricular activities and events.

Focus on ease of use
When you choose a designer for your website and VLE, make sure that the website will be easy to use. If the VLE is too complicated, slow or clunky, people will be put off from using it. Specialist school website designers like those at schoolscool.co.uk will know just how important this is Teachers need to be able to upload class notes and test results without having to go through a whole set of advanced tech features.

It needs to be user friendly for everyone, so that parents and students without technological knowledge will not find it daunting, otherwise it will defeat the purpose.

One way to encourage even more use is to launch an app along with your website. An app is even more user friendly and most people have smartphones these days so they know how to use them. They can use your app to get access to information, and you can also send out push notifications to alert parents to important details.

Your website is not just a brochure
A brochure website is the most basic form of web design, but your school website should go way beyond this. By making it a place where people can go to access and share information and to learn, you can get much more from it.

Your website can become a hub for the whole education community, bringing people together, saving time and resources, and saving your school money. Overall, it should improve the learning experience and make it more efficient, benefiting the whole community.

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