SECTION 1 - OVERVIEW

As we move into the future, the Miami-Dade County Public School District has recognized the importance of Web standards as a way to take advantage of user-centric navigation, to clearly display and organize content, and to maintain a consistent overall look and feel on our Web sites. The most effective way to maintain and deploy a standardized Web site is through the use of templates. As of March 2005, the District Web site www.dadeschools.net has been updated with our universal standard look which includes a top banner, left side XML driven navigation, footer, common color scheme and graphics. Starting April 15, 2005 these templates will be available for District wide use. Although it is not required, it is recommended that District offices and related sites conform to these standards. These templates provided by Internet Services will only be available to users who host their sites on the dadeschools.net server. If you would like to have your site hosted on the dadeschools.net server, request a web presence at www.dadeschools.net/request ; templates can also be requested from this site.

The most important part of the template is the fact that the top banner and the footer are the same throughout the Web site. Also, there is a left side navigation that is created with flash and populated from a XML file. The navigation is optional but the top banner and footer are not. You will immediately notice that the top banner has several links preinstalled on it. Starting from the top left:

• M-DCPS Home - This link will bring a user to www.dadeschools.net the District’s public Web site.

• Contact Us – This link will trigger an e-mail to webmaster@dadeschools.net

• Search – This will bring the user to the dadeschools.net search page where they can search the District Web site. Note this search will not include your site.

• Students – This will bring the user to the students section of dadeschools.net.

• Parents – This will bring the user to the parents section of dadeschools.net.

• Employees – This will bring the user to the employees section of dadeschools.net.

• Community – This will bring the user to the community section of dadeschools.net.

These links can not be modified or deleted. Editing will take place in the content area located in the middle of the page.

The District template utilizes three main technologies Flash, Active Server Pages (ASP), and EXtensible Markup Language ( XML). Flash is used to create graphics and animations which are outputted to a SWF file for display on the Web. The macromedia flash plug-in is required to view these graphics. Flash is used for the top banner and the XML driven navigation. ASP are Web pages that require some server side processing before going to the users browser. We use ASP to include the top banner and the footer pages. XML is a newer language used to mark up or label data. We use XML for the links and categories in the navigation. All this will be explained as you move through this document. It would be beneficial if you visit these links and learn more about these technologies.

www.w3schools.com

www.microsoft.com

www.macromedia.com

www.w3.org/

http://www.tutorialized.com/

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