As both a teacher and a Webmaster, I have
a unique perspective on Web design for education. For me,
the PALC Web site is a means to an end: serving the needs of
adult learners of K-12 curriculum in the community. I have
come to hold a number of strong opinions about effective Web
design for education, based on my experience and research
over the last five years.
In this week’s feature, I will begin a
series of comments on successful Web design, to be
incorporated into my upcoming School District 40
Professional Development Day workshop, “If You Build it,
Will They Come?: Building Effective School Websites.”
The PALC.net site has been fortunate to
have access to
Webtrendslive statistics for the past two years. Knowing
what your clientele does on a Web site is an essential
element of successful Web design. What kinds of things do we
find out, you might ask?
Content, Content, Content
Without question, visitors to the PALC.net
site prefer to view the content produced by our students and
teachers.
Student writing is consistently popular.
In the past quarter, for example, 9% of our page views were
of students’ writing, a total of over 12 000 pages viewed.
Teacher writing accounts for 12% of our
pages viewed, with over 17 000 visits, but is based on more
pages available, so is still running second in popularity to
the students!
What may surprise you is that linking to
content outside of PALC.net has never been all that popular.
A case in point is our Featured
Web Site page. Frequently updated, the page has a
minuscule .15% of pages viewed (placing 133rd overall). In
fact, I sometimes wonder if it is worth the effort!
Next:
Building in Interactivity the Free and Easy
Way!
Visit Last Week's Feature:
Family Literacy Day
Effective
Educational Web Design 
Visit our 