Minnetonka Public Schools' Website Gets a Facelift

Last week Minnetonka launch a new district website, and it looks awesome! Our online presence was overdue for a facelift; we last launched a new website in 2012. Our new website is in Finalsite. The new website incorporates the latest features that viewers in 2016 have come to expect in web-based content: video, images, infographics and interactive feeds with social media. I love the homepage background video that gives visitors an overview of many of the great things happening in our schools. (This video is not visible to mobile visitors.)

Internet Archive's WayBack Machine shows the changes in our website over the years (pictured below). Scrolling through screenshots of our home pages over the years, even with some of the images missing, is a trip down memory lane and a fun visual history lesson of the internet. So much has changed in what is possible with web technology and content management systems over the past two decades since I was teaching my fourth graders basic HTML. (See How Long is Stuff Really Out There? My Students' 1995 Digital Footprint.)

1996

2000

2008

2012

The work on this project began last winter when our Communications and Technology departments began planning. A website redesign committee was formed and met to discuss what we needed in a new website. The committee included staff from the Communications, Technology, Instructional Technology, Athletic and Student Accounting departments as well as teachers, students and principals. We discussed what changes we wanted to see in a new website and reviewed our current structure of menus and pages.

We also conducted a public survey to evaluate what people liked (and did not like) about our website. 1,096 parents, students and staff responded to the survey. Along with that data, we looked at analytics on our most frequently visited pages to determine what the most popular pages were so that we could make sure they are detailed and easy to navigate to on the new site. Finally, the committee researched and evaluated school websites from around the world and listed what we liked best from each.

In February we reviewed proposals from vendors and selected Finalsite. After this decision the real work began. Our Communications staff moved and edited over 1,200 pages of content from our old site to the new one. Take time to look through our new website. We welcome your feedback!

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• How Long is Stuff Really Out There? My Students' 1995 Digital Footprint

How Long is Stuff Really Out There? My Students' 1995 Digital Footprint

Digital footprints last forever, but how can we prove this to kids who tend to live in the moment and think that Snapchats are temporary?  My favorite way is to show them my former students' work from our classroom website from 1995--still online for all to see.

I used to teach elementary and middle school.  "Way back" in 1995 I taught my students basic HTML code and we built out a classroom website where my students posted artwork, information about what we were learning, and wrote autobiographies. My class enjoyed receiving emails from visitors around the world to our website.  I used to have copies of their work on floppy disks as a backup but got rid of those long ago.  However, all of our work is still accessible through Archive.org's "WayBack Machine."  Archive.org is like a museum of the Internet that has been saving over 435 billion websites since the early days of the Internet. 

To go back in time, I simply put in my school's web address and click on the "Take Me Back" button.  And after a few more clicks, I end up here in 1995. It is a completely working website Archive.org saved where you can click on every link.   You click on my school, my fourth graders, their artwork and their names.   





For example, Anna was born in 1986 and was my student in fourth grade in 1995.  Her autobiography and art work is still up there for anyone to see.  It is saved and archived. Now Anna's digital footprint is pretty innocent, and it doesn't even have her last name or an actual photograph.  Students today have much more information posted and available in their digital footprints!

When I show this to students they are often amazed that any of their digital content may be accessible in the future.  It helps them realize how permanent their cyber footprint actually is.  I encourage them to clean up their footprint and keep a clean digital footprint from here on out in the future.  Just imagine how easy and interesting genealogical research will be in the future when you can look through Facebook posts and photos of your great grandma, and watch YouTube videos of your grandpa from his school days!

View more resources and information on digital citizenship and cyber safety here.