micah choquette / upward media featured in local newspaper.
Thanks to the success of www.kellyvilleschools.org Creek County’s only daily newspaper, The Sapulpa Daily Herald, did a feature article on me and my journey into creating “one of the best school websites in the state.” If you get the newspaper, you’ll find on page 5 in Jan. 8, 2008’s issue. Here’s the article as it appeared below:
Kellyville Schools get top-of-the-line web site
Local man returns to alma mater as multi-media specialist and web designer
By Judy Lambert – Herald Assistant Editor
For a small Oklahoma town of about 3,000 people, Kellyville has one of the best web sites in the state. One of Kellyville’s own 2001 high school graduates, Micah Choquette, has returned to town after graduating from OSU Okmulgee with a degree in multi-media technology, and gone to work for his old alma mater.
“A couple of years ago,” Choquette said, “one of the teachers was retiring in the IT (Information Technology) department, and asked me to go ahead and apply for that job, so I did.” Although he had no experience in IT, he got the position.
“The first thing I did was start working on their web site,” he said. “Basically I knew what we needed, got some feedback from the community and determined the needs of the different schools,” and started from the ground up.
Choquette said that returning to his roots was “pretty exciting in a lot of different ways.” He was glad to be back around people he knew.” It wasn’t where I expected to be” after getting out of college, he said, but “man I’m so glad I’m there.”
His position with Kellyville schools is full time multimedia and IT, but because he is a freelance web designer, as well, the school’s web site became part of his responsibility. “I offer my services to the community,” CHouqette said, “and since I am working for the schools, they might as well get a good web site out of it.”
When asked about his freelance business, Choquette said it’s been slow but steady, but it’s picking up.” He said that his school web site and one other one he has worked on since he came home are getting his name out there and bringing in the business.
“I believe we have the best school website in Creek County,” Choquette said, “if not a good part of the state.” A couple of the “key features” of the new website is that the teachers can add information to the website from any computer. “It’s very easy to use and very nicely built,” he said. He sad that the lack of this factor was one of the biggest problems they had with the old web site. “When they had a problem or needed to update the site, “ he aid, “they had to send it to their tech guy” and hope that he could find time or room to fit in on the page. Now anybody who can use a word processing program can get on there and update the information in no time at all.
One of the features he is most proud of on the the new site is the “working staff page” which will have the photographs and biographies of teacher in the Kellyville School system. “It’s under development,” Choquette said. “We’re still working on getting a few things together like pictures of the staff.”
On the staff page, over to the side is a list of the new staff of the year, which will be “dynamically updated each year,” according to Choquette. A search system is also used, where you can type the name of the teacher want to check up on or read about and it will automatically bring up the information. “These are customized for each teacher,” he said. “They have a form online that they fill out (in word process form).” Then someone comes in and does a copy and paste, putting the information on the site. Also, at the end of each biography, there will be an email form where you can contact that teacher or leave a comment.
Although the web site does not have a place where the students can go onto the site and blog, according to Choquette, they are in the process of making that happen. We are planning to get our school journalism class involved,” he said. At that point, they will treat the site somewhat like a school newspaper, as well. “This is all in the making,” Choquette said.
Choquette chose to use an online instrument called “flickr”, in which their school photographers can use any computer to access. They can then download and dress up photos for the website and put them directly on the school site from the flickr website. The web site also has a Google calendar that is unique in that the person looking at the site can choose what events they want to check out on the calendar. Right now there are only a few areas that have events on the calendar, such as FFA, school lunches, schools breaks, etc. You can choose by highlighting or un-highlighting the areas you wish to see or leave out. Parents can go online and check out the school menu for each week.
According to Choquette, there will eventually be more even choices placed on the calendar for viewers to keep abreast of.
One thing that has impressed and helped Choquette put the site together successfully is the fact that everyone from the top down has some input and suggestions to help the site become its very best. He said that he has found that the support he is getting from everyone is remarkable and helpful in building a successful and impressive web site.
Micah Choquette’s freelance business is called Upward Media, and he can be reached on his web site at www.goingupward.com. You can also reach him by email at info@goingupward.com or by phone phone at 918-347-6550
You can check out the Kellyville Schools web site at www.kellyvilleschools.org