Content Types
In this section:
KiwiSchools websites allow for publishing many different types of content. These are all accessed from the user menu when you are logged in. There is a video Using the admin menu that explains the menu more thoroughly.
Blogs
A blog is the quickest and easiest way to keep a school website up-to-date and relevant. All KiwiSchools website users are able to publish blog content and the more users contribute content, the more reason visitors have to return to the website to check up on what has been happening.
"Blog" is short for "web log" but can be anything that you want it to be. It is your space to publish whatever you like.
By default the blogs that you publish will appear on your profile page, the site-wide blog page and the recent blogs section of the sidebar.
Daily notices
A daily notice is a message intended for internal use that will only be displayed on chosen days. Only Teacher and Site Admin roles can create daily notices.
A specific feature of Daily notices is the ability to choose when the notice should be displayed. Select the date you want the notice to appear using the provided date picker. A notice can be displayed on multiple days by using the 'Add another item' button.
Notices will appear in the sidebar for users that are logged in and the Daily Notices page for all other users. Notices will always appear in full so take care that they are not too long. If they contain lots of text, this will make the message stretch down the page.
Information pages / additional pages
An information page is a way to publish additional pages without having to make changes to the main menu. Because access to the main menu is restricted for all users, the information page content type was created to allow quick creation of additional pages. If the page requires a link on the main menu, [contact us] and we can move it for you. Only Site Admin users have the ability to create info pages.
All published information pages are listed on the Info page.
Public notices
Public notices are similar to daily notices but will be displayed to regular visitors until they are manually removed. Only Site Admin users have the ability to create public notices.
Public notices will appear in full in the sidebar for users that are not logged in and also on the Noticeboard page for all users. Because the notice will display in full, take care that it is not too long.
FAQ
FAQ entries provide a neat way to list a set of Frequently Asked Questions. FAQs require a question and an answer before they can be saved. Only Site Admin users have the ability to create FAQ entries.
All FAQ entries are displayed on the FAQ page.
Events calendar
All KiwiSchools sites come with a dynamically generated calendar. Events are an easy way to publish important dates and events to this calendar. An event must have at least a start date. Time of day and finishing date are optional. Only Teacher and Site Admin roles can create events.
The title is what will appear on the calendar page and in the upcoming events in the sidebar. The description will only be displayed if a visitor clicks on the title.
Newsletter & mailing list
The newsletter content type is for publishing a regular newsletter or bulletin to the website as well as emailing it to an opt-in mailing list. Newsletters can be created and sent using the online content editor or sent as file attachments. Only Site Admin users can create and send newsletters.
See this tutorial video for a demonstration of how to upload and send a newsletter.
When being sent as an email, the title will become the subject line in the format: “News: (title)” and the body content will become the body of the email. Any attachments will be listed at the bottom of the email.
Current and past newsletters are displayed on the Newsletters page and the latest newsletter can usually be accessed through the Latest Newsletter link on the sidebar. People can sign up to the mailing list on the Newsletter Signup page.
To send a newsletter
When preparing to send a newsletter, try to make sure that the title is something relevant like “Green School July Newsletter” so subscribers know what they are being sent. If the newsletter is being sent as an attachment, try to include a little description in the body so users can decide wether or not they want to download the atachment.
Any changes to the newsletter must be saved before the newsletter is sent. Once changes are saved, go back to the edit tab of the newsletter and press “Send Newsletter”.
If you want to send a newsletter to subscribers without it appearing on the newsletter page of the website, uncheck the "Published" checkbox under "Publishing options".
You can create and preview a newsletter as much as you like. It will not be sent to subscribers until you press the "Send Newsletter" button. Be careful sending the newsletter, this cannot be undone.
Image galleries
The image content type is for publishing large images to the image gallery. The gallery shows expandable thumbnails of all images and has the option of playing all the images in a slideshow. Site Admin and Teacher roles are able to publish image galleries.
All images need to be in a gallery to be found by visitors so a gallery will need to be created on the Manage image galleries page if one does not exist. The image needs to be uploaded using the File upload button. File type and size limits will apply. As well as a title, images can have an optional caption that will be displayed when the image is seen by itself.
Image galleries are listed on the Image Gallery page.
Videos
The video page is made so you can easily paste embed code from video sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Because the code being inserted is not checked, please make sure that embedded videos do not break the look of the site after they have been published.
A tutorial video is available explaining how to embed a video.
Published videos will appear in the Video Gallery and in the Recent Videos section of the sidebar.
