Technology Coordinator and science Instructional Supervisor Lettie Weinmann, web design teacher Patricia Bruegger, Director of Instructional Technology Darlene Feldstein and junior Dan Chen have combined their efforts to construct a new Gunn web page.

Early spring this year, Bruegger, Feldstein and Weinmann began designing the new web page when the old page, designed by students in Bruegger’s web page design class several years ago, became obsolete and disorganized.

“At that time it met the needs of the school as both a communication tool and as a vehicle for students to learn web page design skills,” Weinmann said. “As the curriculum for the web page class evolved, it grew away from simple page design and maintenance and the old page was left up with no real structure in place to keep the information, links or overall look updated and fresh.”

“The old page was getting hard to manage,” Chen added. “It was getting hard to update stuff because everything was all in one image.”

Since early this spring, Weinmann, with the help of Bruegger and Feldstein, outlined a process to update the web page. “It included re-evaluating the role of the page, identifying the needs of various groups of users, identifying a process to create a new page and a process for maintaining the new page once posted,” Weinmann said.

After determining the new web page’s role and the information to be posted online, Chen was selected to design the new web page. He worked closely with Feldstein, Weinmann and Bruegger.

“Many different looks were considered and much time went into the discussion of function, including pull-down menus, flash animations, and browser compatibility.” Weinmann said.

A new feature of the web page this year is the expansion and further incorporation of the InClass service, with accounts for both parents and students. “Although many teachers still maintain a web page with personal and professional information and resources posted for students, most are using InClass for day-to-day communication,” Weinmann said.

In designing the new web page, the web design team has added additional information. “The new page contains more static information,” Weinmann said. “Information will be updated once or twice per year.” This information includes staff contact information, school report card and the school calendar.

The new web page, however, still features useful web links and features from the previous years. The Daily Bulletin is still updated daily. Teachers web pages are also still available to students.

Students like the new web page. “It’s better than the old one,” senior Richard Ho said. “It’s cleaner and easier to navigate. The old Web site used to have three big inefficient images maps that took forever to load.”

Still, the group has more work to do on the web page. “Our next step is to update all of the old pages with the new layout,” Chen said. “We hope that the new web page is more navigable than the old one and that it is more of use and that everything is more intuitive.”

With only a small team of four people, work always needs to be done in the most efficient way. “Many districts employ a full-time webmaster to maintain the pages of the schools within the district,” Weinmann said. “Some schools have a class that is dedicated to maintaining and updating the school web page. We do not have either of these resources.”

To contribute to the web page, contact Lettie Weinmann in RC-1 or at lweinmann@pausd.org.