Wikis Are Ready…

I have the wiki’s up and running.  The wikis will replace the school websites.  Currently the wikis are only available on the inside of our network; meaning you can only view them from inside the schools.  I am working on getting them available from the outside and to the general public.  What will need to … Read more

New District Website Look

We just updated our district website on recommendations from staff, students, and the community.  The last template used Mootools.  We just made the switch to JQuery for ajax effects.  We also removed the navigation dock that appeared at the bottom of every page in favor of using a fade-in effect on every page with links … Read more

New DPS Blog Theme

I just designed my second WordPress theme using some css tricks from other templates.  This template has rounded corners done by CSS which only works with firefox and safari.  In IE7 it displays square boxes which is fine.  Hopefully Microsoft will catch up and support rounded corners with CSS.  There’s two columns with one sidebar … Read more

Wiki’s being built now

Mindtouch has graciously decided to build our 35 tenent VMware server.  After trying to get it working under IIS, we decided that Ubuntu server would be best since deki wiki was built on linux.  Many of the configuration things we need to have done are a snap in Apache and a pain in IIS.  Hopefully … Read more

New Master Plan for School websites and Web Publishing

Here is an overview of how I see school websites and teacher websites co-existing.  All schools will need to move to a wiki format in the next year.  This coming summer, Contribute will cease to exist (If all goes well).  Some schools have advanced, large websites and use dreamweaver so they will have a longer period to remain as-is with the current website.  I will be encouraging all to move to wikis with the understanding that some websites will be too large to do so this year.  We do not want to cause trouble if the website is used as a learning tool and disrupt this process.

Once all schools are moved to a wiki format there will be rounds of training I will be providing.  We will focus on meeting with tech teams in the building so that they can become knowledgeable with how the wikis work and how to use them.  Remember the wiki is for the school website and is not related to classroom or teacher websites.

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School Websites and Wikis

We now have the software and I am beginning work to configure the wikis for each school.  It’s pretty complex and that complexity is duplicated 32 times because of the number of schools we have.  Once they are ready to go I will let everyone know and those who are anxious to get started can … Read more

iBlog Back in Action???

Well, I have spent the last 5 days focused on one thing: iBlog.  Day and night from home and work all I have been doing is searching forums and discussions for answers to our issues.  Try this and try that with no real positive results.  It has been very stressful and frustrating.  I guess I … Read more

We are getting closer to a fix for iBlog

While not 100% perfect, we are eliminating many hidden issues that have caused the failure of iBlog.  I can assure you I am working diligently to correct these issues.  Upon upgrading the software that runs iBlog, many pre-existing problems were brought to light.  Many of these stem from poorly designed themes and several plugins that … Read more

iPhone WordPress Blogging

I just happened to find this and thought some of our techy teachers with their iPhones could benefit: https://iphone.wordpress.org/ Let’s you update your blog from your iPhone.  Pretty cool huh! -Chris

Big Bust

Well, I am still working on an issue where the blog creation process for new teachers wanting a blog is broken!  When a teacher logs in to iBlog it either creates a new blog for a first time login, or it takes them to their admin panel.  The process is broken and I will be … Read more