Thursday, April 16, 2009

FRONTPAGE STATUS

QUESTION:
I have just been told that I am responsible for my school's website and I don't know where to start. The previous webmaster had a copy of FrontPage, but somebody said that FrontPage didn't work any more. What should I do?

ANSWER:
I drive a Ford Freestar. Ford discontinued making Freestars, but my van keeps on rolling down the road! In the same way, even though Microsoft no longer updates FrontPage, this program will continue to be a very useful html editor (website creation tool). Microsoft wants folks to buy its new model, Web Expressions, but our school district is not going to teach classes in this for a variety of reasons: (1) Most folks already have FrontPage, which works okay, (2) Principals don't want to buy unnecessary software, (3) Sometime next year we plan to shift to a content management system through SharePoint (a comprehensive package covering CMS, a portal, and many other features). SharePoint will allow webmasters to update school websites through Internet Explorer in a fill-in-the-box procedure that does not require any technical expertise--just a brief training class. However, because we can't just sit around and wait for SharePoint to happen, I will continue to teach the basics of web design through FrontPage.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mary... Thanks for creating this blog! I am sure that it will be a useful exchange for sharing information...Angeanette

KM said...

I love this answer! :)