Site for my Students

[tsguitar2004]

This is the site that I've set up for my students. I finally (after 4 years of operating with no graphics and very little "style" as such) decided to spice it up a bit:
http://scweb.esuhsd.org/programs/english/seal/index.phtml

Any comments would be fine. Thanks.
-ts

[Jalenack]

oo i wish my teachers did this for me...so as a high school student i can uhh...point out what I would find useful

I'm assuming this site is much more focused on content than design, so I won't go into design stuff so much.


Why is your name on the homepage not capitalized? it looks kind of dumb to me.
The homework schedules are a bit hard to read...They seem more like they should be tabularized.
its pretty functional. Get's all the information displayed, it's not amazing or anything, but it gets the job done. Good Work


side note:

http://homepage.mac.com/hsuth/grades.jpg
(from one of your 'current grades' pdfs)
I'm glad im not in your class!!

[tsguitar2004]

I always sign my name uncapitalized. It's just a thing I do.

Yeah, let's not talk about the F rate here...

Homework Schedules: My idea with this whole thing is to make it like a blog, so I just put those dates on there that day because it's near the end of the semester and I gave out a bunch of due dates that day. Usually, I just put the due dates in the daily Homework summary. I'll consider a single page with all due dates listed, though. Second semester, maybe.

Go ahead and go into the design stuff. I just worked on making this semi-stylish this weekend, but I'm really just trying to put something out there that is similar to other blogs (I'm hoping it will look familiar to my students). I'm not going for anything amazing, so I'm glad it gets the job done. This is the first centered, drop-shadow site I've done. It felt kind of icky...

And Jalenack, if you were in my class, you'd do the homework and wouldn't be in that string of poor folk who have to sign up for summer school. They are not beyond salvation, however. Anyhow, that's not the conversation here. I lose enough sleep over it and have plenty of those conversations elsewhere!
-ts

[Jalenack]

sorry, it was wrong of me to bring your students' grades into this discussion. It was completely irrelevant...anyhoo:

the color scheme kinda reminds me of excrement. hehe maybe if it were blues instead of browns it would be nicer... Just a thought...

If i were a student i would want to be able to look on the homepage and see what my homework was. Also if you have any of the homework assignment papers on your computer, like Word files, you could post them. I'd imagine the main reason people would come to your site would be to find out what their homework was...and if they could download it straight from your site it would be mighty convenient.

The zebra schedule on the main page could be effective without being gray and darker gray..

It doesn't remind me much of a blog, more like a brochure site. Blogs usually have all sorts of search features and stuff. You could add maybe a forum or something...that would be reallly cool. Just get one up it doesnt have to have any frills...just something the kids could post to. It would make you seem accessible and easy to talk to...and kids could talk to eachother about your class and give suggestions or something..just throwing it out there..although i don't know if a lot of kids would...actively participate ;-)

hope this helps,

[tsguitar2004]

Ok. I'll look into the scheme.

The school server doesn't have a database back end, so the forum idea, while good, is not an option for me here. Maybe later on mrseal.info or something...

All homework on the home page, got it. I think I'll just make that all English 3 homework on the English 3 home page and same for English 1.

Thanks for your input. I like the forum idea... Any blogging software you know of that doesn't use a database backend for such things? I've used Greymatter elsewhere so that might work...
-ts

[Jalenack]

ooo i like the new colors...much much better. Good luck finding some blogging/forum software...i haven't a clue where to look.

p.s. Are you going to Macworld SF in January?

[bazz]

You must know by now tsguitar2004, that I am not the person best qualified to help you here but; I am not sure about the orange colour.

I would tend to think that a dark brown, which would tone with the lighter shades might work better.

bazz

[tsguitar2004]

Since orange is a school color (and I rather like orange), I'll stick with it for now. The orange plays off the purple and green-tints I have in the site. I'll think about it in terms of balance, though. Thanks for that. Any other thoughts on the shade of orange? Is it too bright?? Or does it help to add life to the site?

I added a bit of PHP for a homework page. I found a cool FAQ script that reads a text file (saved as whatever extension you specify). The file name becomes the page title (with some string substitution to clean things up). The first line in the file is the question and the second line is the answer; the loop repeats throughout the file so every odd numbered line is given one set of code and every even numbered line another set. I messed around with it and got it to do what I wanted so I only have to update one .hwk file to update the homework page. It's set up to do the same thing for vocabulary lists. Anyhow, I think I'll use something similar to post links in a sidebar on my personal site (like simplebits's quickbits sidebar). I think it'll come in handy for a ton of other projects, too. Email me if anyone's interested in it. Telling a client to edit a text file and FTP it up is a lot easier than editing HTML. And creating a password-protected Web interface to edit the file should be a sinch, so it's almost a CMS...

I'm looking into the forum idea. There are several things out there. Thanks for the tips. My kids are looking into it, too. I need to get a contact form up so they have an easier (and anonymous) way of letting me know about it.
-ts

[bradyj]

code looks good -- design is functional to what it serves, I don't think it needs anything really much than what it is:)

As a side not -- stop using break tags -- just close the paragraph and start a new paragraph if you must -- no more break tags:) I've got to drop mine as well in some sites, I know... but presentational in nature, not fully functional.

Hey, if you ever need some speakers -- I've got the 99' Poet of the year award for National Poets society -- Doug Hahn on Dotfive has the midwest lureate (that misspelling is for you:)) for 2002 -- we're hip, we can speak jive to the new generation :D

[tsguitar2004]

I'm weeping for the impending loss of the break tag (that sounded poetic!). I just like the thought of a softer break than a new paragraph...

Good point, though. That will end up being code that we'll point and laugh at a year or so from now, just like we point and laugh at font tags (I just grabbed a PHP script that had font tags used in it; it was a script written not so long ago...).

So I'll just give the P tags an ID and adjust the padding/margin. And thanks for the comments about the code. If I have any geeky students out there that look at the code, I hope to impress them.

Speakers? Yeah, the ones for my computer are kind o-- Oh! THAT kind of speaker! Thanks. I'll look into it.
-ts

[dniwebdesign]

Good point, though. That will end up being code that we'll point and laugh at a year or so from now, just like we point and laugh at font tags (I just grabbed a PHP script that had font tags used in it; it was a script written not so long ago...).

What script would that be?

[tsguitar2004]

I don't remember, actually.
-ts

[mindlessLemming]

Server Error 500: Network is down.
I can't get to your site. I'd like toi have a look though...


we're hip, we can speak jive to the new generation :D

Yeah, they certainly are jive talkers :D
(Whatchu talkin' about Willis?!)

[tsguitar2004]

The district office is closed for the next two weeks, so there was no one I could call to have it fixed. I noticed that it was down earlier today. I just checked and it's back up now, so have at it mindless! Looking forward to your comments...
-ts

[mindlessLemming]

Footer? What footer? The page just ends all of a sudden... Did you run out of inspiration ;) :p

Other than that, my only gripe is the intense orange colour of the sidebar.
To quote the best TV show of all time:
"Aaargh, my eyes! These goggles, they do nothing!"

Besides those design issues, it serves its purpose well :)

[tsguitar2004]

Ack! I like the orange! I'm still thinking about it, though (as per a previous comment). Maybe just lightening it up a bit will do it.

Yeah...footer...

It isn't a huge concern of mine, but for portfolio purposes, I'm thinking about rounding it out (a treatment similar to the top) later next week. Thanks for the reminder.
-ts

[AaronW]

I've never liked text written on pastels, so my suggestion would be to swap the white page background with the light-orange text background (and to create a footer, maybe.)

I too like orange :) I'm more of a neon orange fan, though.

Oh, and I think the purple clashes a little. Heh. Maybe deep blue instead?