Resources for 3 Mobile Strategies to Keep Up with Uber Connected Parents

Connected parents want info on their children 24/7. Do you take advantage of mobile strategies to meet their needs? Get WhippleHill expertise on how to maximize mobile with your public content, behind the password and in social media. This session also features a fellow WhippleHill school, its mobile site set-up, ideas to promote it, and data on what areas of the mobile site are most popular with parents. See how your mobile site can meet parent needs for info in ways nothing else can.

Improving the Volunteer Experience with School Volunteer

Neill Ray of The School Volunteer & Maura Webster, WhippleHill Communications

Join Neill Ray of The School Volunteer as he shares how volunteer coordination at your school doesn't have to be a challenge! From the get-go, The School Volunteer makes finding volunteer chairs much easier, simplifies the process for volunteers to sign up for committees, events, and tasks, and streamlines activities from emails to the nomination process! Join us for a brief webinar to learn how your volunteer committees can thrive, and love what they're doing! This is the perfect webinar for Volunteer Chairs/Coordinators, Parent Association Presidents, etc.

Mobilize Your Alumni - EverTrue and WhippleHill

Travis Warren, WhippleHill Communications & Brent Grinna, Evertrue

In this webinar and product demonstration, discover how mobile can connect your alumni. Whether your office is just starting to explore opportunities in mobile, or is seeking ways to gain better insights into your alumni community, in this webinar hosted by WhippleHill founder Travis Warren and EverTrue founder Brent Grinna, take a look at trends in mobile, and how the EverTrue platform works hand in hand with your WhippleHill Alumni Groups to connect alumni and provide your alumni office real time data.

Resources for How to Go from Print to Digital Communications

Are there communications you should always print? How do you transition a print magazine to a digital communication? We'll discuss the key steps to make the transition from print to digital format for a variety of communications, how to decide what communications to transition, and how to get buy-in from your Head of School and community on this change. Get insight from someone who's helped schools through this process. It may seem daunting, but it can be done!

Resources for How to Use Facebook Insights to Benchmark Your School's Pages

Facebook just released a new version of Insights that live up to their name. These metrics uncover the true reach and success of your posts. But how do you read them? And what does each new metric mean?

This webinar will demonstrate how to read and use the new Facebook Insights tool from top to bottom. Plus, we'll share data from fellow schools so you can measure how your school stands next to them. Facebook developed these benchmarking tools, let's learn how to make the most of them!

Resources for 3 Ways Your School Should Use Pinterest

Maura Webster, Jess Creach

What's Pinterest? How do you use it at a school? Since Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined, it's worth checking out.

This session will cover Pinterest basics, including 3 ways you can launch your presence on this fast growing social media network. We'll show you examples of schools who use Pinterest with great success to give ideas to get your Pinboard started.

Magnus Health Integration, Phase II

Chas Scarantino, CEO Magnus Health

Over the past year, Magnus Health has successfully performed numerous installs with WhippleHill schools and has several more slated for 2012. Phase I of the integration featured single sign-on and partially provisioning student and parent information into the Magnus Health SMR (student medical record). With Phase II of the integration just weeks away, students and parents will soon be completely provisioned upon signing into their Magnus accounts. Additionally, there will be a full one-way sync from Podium to SMR, which will update parent and student information as it changes throughout the year. Schools will also have the ability to import a roster into SMR with the push of a button, automatically creating all parent and student accounts. This enables schools to realize the immediate benefits of using a web-based SMR solution to communicate with parents and collect critical health information securely and efficiently.

Resources for How to Keep Up with Uber-Connected Parents: Portals and Logins

Will Redway, Susan Morgan

Plugged in parents want information. And they want it now. 

Do you use your portal to deliver customized info to parents on simple log in? Do you organize portal info by parent priority? Is it easy to find and read? Do you solicit parent feedback? Is your parent login rate at 95%? 

This session will highlight a number of strategies to increase your percentage of parent login, up readership, and make the most important info easy to access.

Resources for Getting Your School Started with the Flipped Classroom

Hans Mundahl, Brian Sullivan, Steve Fay

What is the flipped classroom? How do you take the plunge? 

Learn from a school who plunged and succeeded. When you decide to replace lecture with active classroom learning, it can impact curriculum, class materials, teacher professional development, lesson planning, and assignments. 

The pay-off? Teachers meet students at individual levels, students feel engaged, and parents rave about their children’s performance. This session will help use technology tools to transform your classrooms to support this modern teaching and learning style.

Resources for The LMS Bundle that's a Win for Your Teachers, Parents, and Students

Allison Skidmore, WH Sales Engineer, and Abby Chau, WH Customer Sales Manager

How do you help your teachers keep up with demanding parents and savvy students? 

Give them the right classroom technology tools and you can change the level of academic interaction in your school. This session will discuss how you can use three products - Academic Groups, Grade Book, and Drop Box - to help your teachers manage and execute a variety of classroom tasks. Happy students begin with happy teachers. Learn how your efforts to support your teachers with these LMS tools benefits your students and parents, too. It's a win for everyone!

Resources for 5 Ways to Engage Alumni/ae on Facebook

Travis Warren, Jeremiah Stevens

You know your alumni/ae are on Facebook. How do you standout from their 500+ friends, targeted ads, the apps, and other community pages? 

In this session we’ll feature Facebook strategies to draw alumni/ae to school events and conversations. Whether the goal is readership, comments or feedback, engagement equals relationship building, so it’s a worthy effort! In this idea-packed hour we’ll highlight examples of other schools’ Facebook Alumni/ae efforts so you’ll walk away with ideas you can modify and implement for your school.

How SEO Can Draw the Right Students

Francis McGovern, Kit Creeger

What’s SEO got to do with enrollment? Good question.

In this session you’ll learn what search patterns and strategies you can exploit to help perfect your school’s SEO campaigns. We’ll give real world examples of how to leverage keyword research, content strategy, blogging, social media, and external linking for SEO success. See how these strategies can support your enrollment efforts – and then replicate them for your school.

How Do You Know It's Time for a Website Refresh?

Daren Worcester, Abby Chau

You make your first impression with your homepage. Visitors expect fresh content, both written and graphic, each time they visit your site. Learn how you can create a new site that packs a punch visually and has easy-to-use, self-managed functionality that allows you to keep it current and fresh. This session will also describe our new consulting services, like, SEO, and content audits to support you through the building process. We'll discuss highlights of our production process and of course, we'll cover pricing.

WhippleHill's Compiled Video Strategies and Best Practices

Travis Warren at CASE-NAIS 2012, San Francisco

4 Strategies to Execute a Cost-Effective Online Marketing Plan and Drive Enrollment

Angela Marinelli

You don’t need a huge budget or team to execute an effective online marketing strategy. You just need to know what strategies to use and how to use them. Watch this webinar, download the session summary, or check out our related resources to pick up key e-communications, social media, and online advertising strategies that you can start using today.

Summon Support to Showcase Your Students

Travis Warren

You know the endless job of "show don't tell." Feel like you go it alone?

Learn how to use different technologies to engage the community in your efforts to feature student successes. What could keep parents and Heads of School happier? Scrap the magic class - no need for five of you - and register for this webinar instead. See how other schools use WordPress, Facebook, and QR Codes to highlight students and amplify their communications team with community involvement.

Google and WhippleHill: Where's This Relationship Going?

Cory Kennedy, Jill Judd, Hiram Cuevas

Presented by: Jill Judd, WhippleHill Director of Business Partnerships, and Google Apps for Education users Hiram Cuevas, Director of Academic Technology at St. Christopher's School and Scott Daniel, Director of Technology at Barstow School
Wednesday, November 9th at 1pm ET

How to Develop a Social Media Policy 101

Travis Warren

Not 100% confident in your social media policy? Not sure how to create an effective one?  

Let WhippleHill help. We researched a full spectrum of examples from schools, universities, for profits, and non-profits to evaluate what works. In this session we'll share best practices, hot tips, and guidelines in social media policy development. Leave with samples so you can build your own policy by the end of this webinar. Simple and straightforward.

Ron Weikers is the Managing Partner of Weikers Co. | Software-Law.com in Manchester, NH.  Since 1988, he has represented software vendors and clients around the country with regard to software licensing and other legal matters, having practiced law in Silicon Valley, Philadelphia and now New England. Ron is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, and has published numerous articles and several books relating to computer law issues.

SchoolDude and WhippleHill: Connecting Your Facilities to Your Calendar

Jill Judd

Join us as we learn more about the products and services offered by SchoolDude and how they can be put to use at your school.  We'll also be joined by Page Lennig, Technology Director at the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, where they are effectively using the SchoolDude Connect Schedules - WhippleHill integration to manage both their facilities and calendar.  Page will share with us how they are putting FS Direct to work at their school, and why using the integration has made event management more efficient at Waynflete.

5 Ways to Incorporate Video into Your Communications Strategy

Travis Warren

Everyone else is doing it…does your school community ask, "why aren't you?"

Video surpassed cool long ago and just climbed into your critical communications tool kit. The average viewer watches 137 videos per month - are they watching yours? In this session Travis Warren, President of WhippleHill, shares insights about the direction of video, the most effective ways to use it, and realistic ways you can add it to your communications strategy.

SEO: Beyond the Basics to Boost Rankings

Francis McGovern

Got great videos, but want to increase your viewings? Leverage SEO and video to improve your search engine rankings, and step up viewings. You can do that? Yep! This session shows you how. Interested in video tool tips between WhippleHill, Brightcove, YouTube, and Google? We'll cover that, too, and show examples of optimized video to help you master the concepts.

Back to School: What’s New in 2011

Travis Warren, Jackie Christensen

Training - Directory Improvements

Jackie Christensen

See a demo of the latest features and learn how to manage Podium Directory and My Contacts. Highlights include a print option that honors Profile Publish Settings, an updated look and feel, enhanced keyword search, addition of LinkedIn style faceted search, as well as mobile-friendly versions of Directory and My Contacts.

Performance Tuning Your Site

Travis Warren, Kelsey Warren

Optimal online communication relies on fast, efficient Web site performance. Learn what you can do to tune your site's presence for better communication and discover how selecting the right platform can make all the difference. Click here to download the slide presentation shown in the live 5/26 session.

Mobile Podium 3.0

Jackie Christensen

By integrating the touch-based interaction of a smartphone app with the power of user-specific content, WhippleHill has developed a cross platform, browser-based mobile solution that will enable your school to communicate to users on any mobile device platform

Sneak Peek: Directory Enhancement Release

Jackie Christensen

Get a preview of the highly anticipated Directory release. Highlights include a  print option that honors Profile Publish Settings, an updated look and feel, enhanced keyword search, addition of LinkedIn style faceted search and brand new My Contacts feature.

Accessing Your School’s Data with List Manager

Jackie Christensen

WhippleHill and Magnus Health SMR: Single Sign-On

Jill Judd

Join us for a demonstration of the Ecosystem's latest integration: single sign-on access for parents into Magnus Health SMR (Student Medical Records). Learn how this integration can save your families and administrators time when updating student medical records. In addition to the integration, you will also see a full demonstration of the Magnus SMR product. This web-based solution allows schools to collect, access, track and share student health information.

Building Web Effectiveness with Parents

Travis Warren, Jim Zulakis, Joan Fishbein Feldman, Beth Tfiloh

Creative Commons Overview

Travis Warren, Jane Park

What is Creative Commons? How did it originate? And how did it become part and parcel of worldwide movements toward open education, open scientific practices and open culture? ccLearn, the education division of Creative Commons, answers these basic questions, then explains how CC is integral to the future of educational practices that capitalize on transformative technologies in innovative and completely legal ways.

The following resources were discussed during the session and are available for your use:

• EFF's Teaching Copyright: http://www.teachingcopyright.org/
• Stanford's Copyright and Fair Use Resources: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/index.html
• Copyright.gov: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
• American University School of Communication Center for Social Media: http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use

5 Web Trends You Should Know

Travis Warren

Keeping up with web trends can be difficult, but it's important to know which ones to pay attention to and how they will affect your school. Join is for an in-depth explanation and exploration of five web trends that are here to stay: HTML5, Video, Jquery, Mobile Apps and CSS.

Designing Your Social Media Strategy

Travis Warren, Stephen Johnson, Jesse Bardo

Social media strategies are not ‘one size fits all’. We’ll explore how to utilize popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr to build a successful social media strategy as unique as your school.

The Power of Web Feeds

Travis Warren & Scott Daniel

RSS, iCal and Podcasts enable your constituents to stay connected to your school and informed of the latest information. Come learn what these feeds are all about and how best to utilize them at your school.

E-Newsletters: Maintaining and Increasing Your Readership

Travis Warren, Annie Branch, Art Jessen

With the ability to create your own unique templates, specify recipient  audiences and target your messages, the online newsletter has become a  key piece of most school’s communication strategies. This session will  look at what works and what doesn’t. Learn from peer schools by looking  at examples and discussing best practices.

Sneak Peek: Media Gallery HTML5 Release

Jackie Christensen

See the features and functionality of the Media Gallery release, including H.264 encoding support, video streaming, a new player for videos, pop-up photos and audio and support for mobile devices and iPads.

Simple, Successful Video for Schools

Travis Warren, Curt Lewellyn

Implementing video at your school doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming. Learn from schools who have successfully added video to their web site communication strategy. To download a PDF of the slides used in this presentation, click here.

Your School's SEO Strategy

Fancis McGovern & Matt Toy

Improve online interest in your school that will not only translate into increased inquiries and gifts, but reinforce your brand in a competitive market.

Using Blogs to Communicate Effectively

Travis Warren, Alex Ragone

It's not enough to have a beautiful web site. Real-time, authentic communication is key. This session will look at the impact blogging can have on your school's story. We'll discuss it from all angles - from students and teachers to advancement.

Interactive Campus Environments with Google Earth and Maps

Travis Warren, Oliver Davis

Learn more about interactive campus experiences using the latest web tools available, including Google Earth and Google Maps.

Generating Social Currency with Old Photos

Travis Warren & Kim Hurlbutt

Engaging alums by tapping into their cumulative free time. Learn about Proctor Academy's photo archive project.

Blogs & Wikis for Educators

Jill Judd

Blogs and wikis have become an integral part of today's education. Guest speaker, Adam Frey, of Wikispaces, will discuss the benefits of wikis for educators. Join us for this session as we demonstrate what other schools are doing and show you how easy it can be to integrate blogs and wikis into your website!

The Art of Mash-Up

Travis Warren

Learn what a mash-up is and take a look at examples of schools using this new type of web site to effectively show their stories. For insight into how to create a social media policy for your school, click here to read an edSocialMedia blog entry by Stephen Johnson of Windward School and here to download a PDF version of Worcester Academy's Social Media Guidelines and Best Practices.

Photo Export Plug-Ins

Jill Judd

Looking for a great way to incorporate your school’s photography onto your website?  Join us for a sneak peak of our latest plug-ins, Aperture 3 and Lightroom, as well as a demo of our two existing plug-ins, Picassa and iPhoto.

Sneak Peek: Portal UI Improvements

Travis Warren

Feedback from our users (you, your parents, students and faculty) has driven the improvements included in this Portal-specific release, like the introduction of fly-out Portal navigation, drag and drop for creating and editing Portals and a series of new Portal channels. Find out all the changes slated to be included in this summer 2010 release.

Summer Series: Secrets Behind the Password

Melissa Lavallee

WhippleHill clients will lead you through their “behind-the-password” communities for parents, students and teachers. Each school came to us with a common problem: They wanted to communicate effectively to their constituents without overwhelming them with too much information. These schools will share how they made decisions regarding the layout of their Portals and how they determined who would have access to their Assignments, Athletics, Media Gallery, Calendars and Portals. Although they all use Podium to solve their communication challenges, you will get an insider’s look at how they customized our solutions to best meet the specific needs of their constituents

Summer Series: 5 Ways to be More Productive with Academic Groups

Mark Sargent

In this session, we will present to the user the secrets to creating an Academic Group Page that works. In addition, we will be looking at some real examples of pages that work as well as hearing from experts from schools that have implemented pages successfully.

Veracross

Jill Judd

WhippleHill has teamed with Veracross to create a robust integration with their unique web-based Student Information System. Join us as we demonstrate how this integration can save valuable time on user data management by synchronizing user data directly from Veracross into WhippleHill. Remove the need for manual refreshes and avoid duplicate data issues with this effective and user friendly management interface.

Summer Series: Using a Mash-up to Showcase Student Work

Matt Clobridge, Beaver Country Day School

Technology in the classroom is allowing students to easily produce work in multiple media -- from video and audio to traditional written material. It also allows these products to be shared with an audience outside the classroom walls. But how can you collect all this work and display it in a user-friendly way for others to see? Join us as we discuss the BCDS mashUp, Beaver's online showcase for student and faculty work. You'll learn how we got started, how material is chosen for the mashUp, and how it is used in our marketing efforts. We'll also demonstrate how the site integrates all of Beaver's web and social media activities. Since a mashup can be constructed in many ways, this will not be a technical discussion, but rather one where we look at what a mashup is and how you can use it at your school.

Infosnap Data Shuttle 3.0

Frank Arias, infosnap

Building on the functionality and success of Data Shuttle 2.0, Data Shuttle 3.0 (DS3) delivers bi-directional synchronization capability between the WhippleHill user profile and the RE database. Come learn about all the new functionality of DS3, sure to make database administration easier than ever.

Sneak Peek: Notifications

Travis Warren

The Notifications project involves a series of releases implementing the utilization of text messages and e-mails as a way for users to receive updates for site content. In this session, the first element - creation of a “My Notifications” Master Page and the interface for enabling text-enabled devices - will be reviewed and the full scope of this project and its roadmap will be discussed.

Getting Buy-In from Administrators for Social Media

Stephen Johnson, Communications Director at Windward School

Social media is here in education, and it's scaring many Heads of School witless. And who can blame them? The Head has a difficult job of leading the school, increasing its prestige, making sure it's all paid for, and (this is under-appreciated) protecting the school and making sure the whole enterprise doesn't go wrong. 

Summer Series: SEO Best Practices

Kyle James, Manager of Consulting Services at HubSpot

Maybe you don’t even know what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is? Search Engines are the first place that nearly everyone goes when looking for something. Having your site displayed at the top of results for relevant searches is a powerful way to get visitors to your website. In a sense it’s a way to provide free traffic to your site. Also because when people search, they are usually looking for a specific thing being and able to provide it to them you are gaining a relevant visitor. 

Unfortunately, when people think about SEO immediately those emails of spammers who guarantee #1 results in search engines come to mind. SEO doesn’t have to be black magic, pixie dust, or snake oil. In fact if you think of SEO in terms of the usability and accessibility that the search engines like Google have always intended it to be then it’s a very practical approach to designing your website. 

This presentation will cover the bottom line best practices about On-Page & Off-Page optimization for search engines. This will be solid advice that individuals can take home and immediately make changes to their site.

Sneak Peek: Podium Search

Travis Warren

This session will debut an upcoming release to Podium delivering a new, more powerful search function to the Podium platform, including: the ability to search content both public and private, searching directly from the Portal, availability of advanced search queries and more.

Summer Series: Find Them, Keep Them! (By Using Facebook/Social Media)

Joel Price at Friends' Central

You're already using Facebook for your school, and you might also be using some other Web2.0 services to syndicate/display your content. What can you do to make sure people are finding your online presence beyond your school's website, and how can you start assessing where your time and energy should be allocated?

Wikispaces

Jill Judd

Check out a sneak peak of our integration with Wikispaces! WhippleHill has partnered with Wikispaces, a leader in the hosting of wikis for the K-12 space. Wikis are becoming an integral part of learning in today’s classroom. This integration is an excellent way to incorporate a valuable learning tool into your Podium website! Join us as we demonstrate how you can incorporate a single sign-on solution, along with guest access into Wikispaces directly from Podium.

Summer Series: Using Google to Manage Your School's Web Presence

Tony Trumbo and Michael Wyszomierski

Learn how to take advantage of free tools to monitor and control your school's visibility and reputation in search results and across the web. We'll show how your school can use Google Webmaster Tools and the Local Business Center to help your audience reach you.

Summer Series: Building GeoWeb-based Interactive Campus Maps in 3D using Google Maps and Google Earth

Oliver Davis

In this session we will cover how 3D and Maps create an interactive campus experience using the latest web tools available --- including Google Earth and Google Maps. We will walk through the development of a live campus model in 3D and the steps required to build interactive geoweb-site using map based content and video for students, alumni, parents and staff alike.

Sneak Peek: Unplanned Comments

Mark Sargent

In this upcoming release for the Comments product, schools will be able to create comment types that are not only level specific but also grade level specific, allowing for a teacher to create comments that are specific to grade levels. In addition, the monitoring team has been rethought to allow for more flexibility in the approving and reviewing of comments and comment types.

Wordpress Integration

Jill Judd & Travis Warren

Ready to implement blogging at your school but not sure where to start? Already using blogs, but wishing they would integrate better into your site? Join us as we demonstrate our WordPress integration! WhippleHill has taken the guess work out of integrating WordPress blogs at your school, by adding hosting and blog management directly through Podium. We’ll step you through the set-up and management of WordPress blogs and show you how you can incorporate them into your site, making them readily available to your constituents.

Sneak Peek: User Based Files

Mark Sargent

Utilizing the functionality of this upcoming Podium release, Platform Managers will be able to upload personal files to specific individuals at the school. These files can be organized in specific folders and will be displayed on the Portal as well as the user’s profile

Product Release: Assignment Drop Box

Mark Sargent

The new Assignment Drop Box application will set a new benchmark for integration of applications within WhippleHill's suite of products by connecting three applications in one cohesive workflow. Come learn all the features and functionality of this much-anticipated release!

Microsoft Exchange

Jill Judd

Join us for a sneak peak of our integration with Microsoft Exchange! In this session, we will demonstrate how you can synchronize your master Exchange calendar with your Podium event categories. Find out how incorporating this integration into your site can save you time on event management and avoid double entry!

Facebook Custom Pages

Jill Judd

Join us for a sneak peak of our new Custom Pages for Facebook. We’ll show you how these customizable public profile pages can enhance your brand presence on Facebook and save you time on content management! Connect with more Prospective Families, while keeping your Current Families, Alumni, and Friends informed. Increase your visibility and increase site traffic!

Naviance

Jill Judd

Join us for a demonstration of WhippleHill’s integration with Family Connection by Naviance! In this session, we’ll walk through a live demonstration of our integration which features single sign-on for Students into Family Connection, as well as a convenient user-matching browser for administrators. Learn how this integration can eliminate password fatigue for Students, saving website managers time and security concerns.

End Of Year Procedures

Brenda Noiseux

Spring is in the air and graduation is right around the corner... And you are asking yourself: What do I need to do before I leave for vacation?  Join us for our annual end of the year procedures webinar covering when and how to graduate your seniors, withdrawing faculty who are leaving and using the Master Rollover.

SEO: Beyond the Basics

Travis Warren & Francis McGovern

Learn how to use SEO and online marketing to improve online interest in your school that will translate to inquiries, giving, and reinforce your brand in a competitive market. In this session we’ll move beyond the basics like meta tags and keywords and look at the process involved in developing a program from research, implementation, ongoing strategy and analytics.

Getting Creative with Interior Layouts

Sarah Hamilton & Natalie Curtiss

There’s a tug of war taking place on many school Web sites between the information users are looking for and the messages schools want to communicate. The trick of page building is to satisfy both. In this session, we’ll discuss how to accomplish this goal by approaching page building from the user’s perspective. Topics covered will include writing for the Web, maximizing photography, page layout selection and effective uses of content types.

School Dude: A WhippleHill Integration Case Study

Jill Judd

Join Integration Product Manager Jill Judd for a look at WhippleHill’s integration with FS Direct, School Dude’s facility management software. Learn how this partnership helps schools approve room bookings, identify possible conflicts and avoid time-consuming double entry.

Facebook 201: Expanding Your School's Communication Strategy

Jill Judd

More than 350 million active users turn to Facebook for their social media fix. Learn how your school can get in on the craze by creating a Fan Page, or Public Profile Page, and add photos, videos and links to your site. Learn how to add RSS and other applications, as well as how to push out targeted updates and analyze your results.

Publishing Grade Books to the Community - Are you prepared?

Mark Sargent

What are the issues and obstacles that you will need to address as your school makes plans to make every teacher's gradebook available to the parents? What are the differences that you can expect to encounter with the different cultures present in the school levels?  In this webinar, we will discuss the pre- and post-implementation issues that schools have encountered as they opened up their teacher's gradebooks to parents and the community.  The discussion will include: aspects of the school culture as it impacts this decision, pitfalls encountered, and suggestions for what a school should take into consideration as it moves its grading practices into a more open environment.  

Basic SEO Concepts and Applying Them to Your Web Site

Jessica Cady

There really aren’t hidden secrets to improving the volume or quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines, just several key concepts to put in place. This session will provide a basic overview in an attempt to demystify SEO, as well as lessons on applying the key concepts to your Web site using Podium tools. With Podium functionality, your school's SEO capability can successfully rest in the hands of Page Managers.

Facebook 101: The Basics

Jill Judd

In 2008, Facebook vaulted over MySpace to become the world's largest social networking site and the place to be to reach constituents of all ages. This session will walk you through the basics of navigating and using the site, including signing up, establishing privacy, setting up and finding friends.

Finding Your Voice in Social Media

Travis Warren

We are not going to try to convince you that social media is important. The case for it has been made many times before. The goal of this Webinar is to explore the process of building your own social media practice. We will focus on understanding social media etiquette, building online conversations and finding the right medium for you. If you have not already done so, the aim of this discussion is to motivate you to wade deeper into social media waters.

What to Prepare for: New Client

Abby Chau, Anya Kusiankova and Matt Toy

Join members of our production service team as they break down the phases of production and define the milestones you’ll reach along the way to constructing a new site. Hear helpful hints on how to plan for your project’s creative timeframe and identify the assets your school can put forward to keep your project as simple and smooth as possible.

Pushpage Sneak Peek

Melissa Lavallee

Ready to see what's coming in the new version of Pushpage? Join me for this 1-hour 'sneak peek' session and get your first look at this entirely new application, full of the features and functionality you've been waiting for.

What is a Page Builder Homepage?

Daren Worcester & Joe Vance

You don’t need custom-coded pages to design quality Web sites. Podium provides the functionality to build eye-catching and easy-to-navigate pages. See examples of schools that have taken the reins on their own homepages with help from Podium’s Page Builder and hear about the advantages of using this approach for your school's site.

pickAtime: A WhippleHill Integration Case Study

Jill Judd

A face-to-face meeting between parents and teachers can help make the difference in student progress. Learn how Podium’s single sign-on integration with the event scheduler pickAtime  eases the administrative burden of arranging these appointments and encourages parent participation.

Moodle: A WhippleHill Integration Case Study

Jill Judd

Moodle has rapidly become one of the most popular open-source online course management software available. Learn about WhippleHill’s current single sign-on (SSO) integration that seamlessly authenticates users from Podium into their Moodle accounts, and hear about future plans to integrate Academic Groups into Moodle.

Getting Creative with Interior Layouts

Sarah Hamilton and Natalie Curtiss

There’s a tug of war taking place on many school Web sites between the information users are looking for and the messages schools want to communicate. The trick of page building is to satisfy both. In this session, we’ll discuss how to accomplish this goal by approaching page building from the user’s perspective. Topics covered will include writing for the Web, maximizing photography, page layout selection and effective uses of content types. 

Senior Systems: A WhippleHill Integration Case Study

Travis Warren

Podium’s integration with the popular school administration software provider Senior Systems enables single sign-on (SSO) with deep linking, which specifically relates to users’ goals. Data synchronization between the two platforms will allow schools to manage their data in Senior Systems and have it automatically update in Podium. Hear how our solution has helped University School improve its user experience. A representative from Senior Systems will also be on hand to answer questions.

Art of the Mashup

Travis Warren

Mashups are appearing more frequently on the Web, combining content or functionality from multiple sources into one location. Schools who have mastered the mashup are tapping into tremendous potential for community involvement. Join WhippleHill President Travis Warren for a tour of the top 10 mashable social media sites and a primer on widgets, tags, feeds (RSS), groups and pools. He will share examples of how schools are using mashups creatively and successfully in the classroom and on their Web sites and discuss the potential for using Facebook as a mashup platform.