Teachers Bring Kiel Area School District Web Site Into the Classroom
The Kiel Area School District was looking for an easy way to let faculty and staff to set up and maintain their own Web pages. They chose CMS4Schools to help.
“I looked at different content management systems,” said Joe Kruse, Kiel Area School District technology technician and trainer. “CMS4Schools was easy to implement and gave enough flexibility for teaching staff to be able to do what they needed.”
The district has four schools and each wanted its own Web presence. After designing the site’s architecture and updating site content, the Kruse used CMS4Schools to develop a home page for each school. A CMS4Schools trainer conducted an on-site training session to teach building representatives how to add pages, calendars, staff listings and other elements to their sites.
When the new site launched in fall 2008, faculty and staff members were quick to get involved as well. Kruse took advantage of the CMS4Schools ‘user control’ feature to give faculty and staff members access to their own pages, while preventing them from having access to the entire site.
Almost immediately, staff members began building Web pages for their classrooms or subjects, adding slideshows from classroom activities, classroom photo galleries, newsletters and resources for students.
“Some teachers create a page to use with their students in the computer lab or classroom,” Kruse said. “Students don’t have to type in a long URL, which makes class time more productive.”
Kruse is also excited to tap the wisdom of other CMS4Schools users at regular networking events/share sessions as he garners new ideas to take back to his district. | 
