I could have used my time productively tonight, but instead I put together a brand new stigmergicweb podcast, looking at school websites and how to improve their functionality.

Problems with many existing school websites:

• out of date information
• poor navigation, cluttered web pages (clown pants page design)
• content is maintained by a single person or small group of people within the school
• doesn't serve the school community

What we need:

• timely, relevant information
• design with web standards
• everyone is a contributor
• enhances the community. Several highly successful online communities exist including slashdot and kuro5hin.

Drupal is a great tool for setting up a dynamic web site that can be maintained by all members of the school community. It has many features that lend itself to enhancing communication and community within a school. My generic high school site is an example of how this might work.

I've heard from a couple of others who are working on these sorts of projects, and I've been watching with interest what the DrupalEd group are doing. Are there any other projects/models out there where Drupal is being used to manage a web site for a K-12 school?

(This is a cross post from my blog: http://stigmergicweb.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/09/stigmergicweb-pod...)