For The School Without A Tech Department

Here are some handy tips for those schools that do not have dedicated staff.

“Don’t:”

  1. Trust salespeople.  About anything.  Ever.  If you remember none of these rules, write this one down and never forget it.
  2. Buy a complete, all in one, web 2.0, interactive, fully intuitive, interactive learning and blah, blah blah from a company promising it for your web solution.  You can have a web site up and running for around $20 a month that will look professional and just about anyone can do it.
  3. Buy hosted e-mail.  Google Apps for Education is Free.  7+GB of mail, hundreds of users.  Plus you get access to all of the other amazing features of Google Apps, too.
  4. Care about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – see Rule 1.  You can help your search engine rankings in ways that won’t cost anything.

“Do”

  1. Consider Google Apps for Education
  2. Hire a “techie” for questions.  Even if it’s only a couple of hours, you will make much better decisions if you have some knowledge of what those salespeople are trying to sell. (See Rule #1 above)
  3. Consider Free/Open Source Software
  4. Create social media sites for your school – Facebook and Twitter.  They are a fantastic (and free) way to communicate with your community and students.
  5. Look at what other schools are doing.  You can learn a lot from others in your similar situation.  Many times, someone else has already made the mistakes that you are considering making.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 1:41 pmand is filed under Cheap, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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