This brings up an interesting questions – how do schools inform parents and students that they are going to be closed? Traditionally, schools have informed local radio stations which have spread the news. This however comes with a number of problems – most importantly, not everyone can receive the local radio station. For example, one member of my family goes to Hereford Sixth Form College, which informs BBC Hereford & Worcester, and Wyvern FM of closures. However, here in Abergavenny, we receive neither of these stations.

The college could phone all parents – but with over 1700 students, that would be nearly impossible. Parents ringing the college would freeze up the phone lines. Maybe the schools could use the internet to pass this message? Hereford Sixth Form College does just that – an emergency message has been displayed on the homepage since Monday morning detailing the current status of the college.

What if there was one central resource for information on all schools? One website address for parents to remember – a website which was updated by each school to show their status. Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich suggested this yesterday morning. He purchased schoolclosures.org.uk and challenged DirectGov (the UK’s government gateway) to produce the site ready for the next day (today).

DirectGov must have pulled out all the stops, because just 28 hours later, schoolclosures.org.uk was released as a beta to show how the system might work. This is fantastic work from a government department – not something you will usually hear from me. Being able to take an idea to a working system in just under 28 hours is no mean feat – but is something the government needs to get used to. Well done to everyone who worked on this!

Of course, no one system is going to solve the problem. But with all systems, schools, and government departments working as one, there is a real chance to make an event like this easier on parents and pupils.

Been very busy the last few days.  Helped Charlie move out of her house on Sunday.  Took a while to clean, but I think we left it in a pretty good condition.

Had a meeting on Monday at Hereford Sixth Form with a company who wanted to set up an alumni website for the college.  Unfortunately the meeting didn’t go very well, and the costs were much more than the college can afford.  The final decision is yet to be made (and I won’t be involved in making it), but it was good to be able to get my views across to the marketing team.

Anyway, lots to do and many things to pack.  I’m starting work on Monday morning – working at the web development company again.  Will be interesting to see which projects I will be assigned to this time.

Work is continuing on Project Metis – expect a detailed blog post on this in the next week or so where I will formally introduce the project and a new blog covering the ongoing developments. The front end of this new website is 99% there and we are now in the process of making the final changes and implementing the back end content management systems. With any luck, we should be able to go live in time for Freshers Week at Swansea University.

In other news, one of my systems has been put to the test during the enrolment of new students at Hereford Sixth Form College. The ‘enrolment 2006′ system was built to enable the new students at the college to submit their GCSE results electronically to the student records system. The website went live on Thursday last week (results day) and has been used by the majority of students to submit their results.

Finally, this is my final post as a teenager. I’m 20 tomorrow – very very scary!

That’s all for now, keep an eye out for the Project Metis entry coming soon.

Daibach

Since the Summer Ball / Escape into the Park back at the end of June, we spent the week packing, cleaning and drinking in preparation for moving back home.  On the last Thursday of term Ian and I went out and joined Helen, Gemma, Gemma and Emma on their last night in Swansea.  Helen is spending the next year in New Zealand as part of her course and Gemma P is spending the next few months in Australia, so it was sort of a good bye party.  The photo on the right was taken at the end of the night in Time Swansea.  By this point in the night there were only 4 of us left – me, Emma, Ian and Helen.  More photos can be found in the media section.

A few days later, I completed my move back to Abergavenny and am now living in my new bedroom in the extension.  I’ve also started my traditional summer job in Cardiff so I spend most of the week down in the wonderful Cardiff Bay.

The past few months have been a very busy one for my business.  I’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing 3 new websites and am about to embark on another.  My greatest achievement this month so far has been the launch of a new website for the town of Crickhowell in South Powys.  This small town relies heavily on its community atmosphere, and maintaining this is one of the purposes of the new website.  Since early this year I have been working with Jan Morgan at the Crickhowell Resource & Information Centre to develop the design of the site as well as implementing the systems in use.  The new site has made use of systems I have previously built such as a news module, events calendar, links and contact forms but also incorporates some brand new systems.  One of which enables all community groups, tourist attractions, accommodation providers and businesses to have their own updatable page on the website.  As you might be able to tell, I am quite proud of this website!  It doesn’t end there though!  Plans are currently being drawn up for the second phase of developments which could include a community blog and visitor photo albums.  Feel free to check out the website at http://www.crickhowellinfo.org.uk.

Another website I have been working on recently is a site to promote a book containing a series of bike rides within / around the Blaenavon World Heritage Site.  The new book has been written by a local cycle enthusiast – Alwyn Thomas – who has spent the last few months compiling these rides.  The website I’ve produced – all though very small has been designed to give visitors a taste of what can be found in the book.  Extracts from the book are available on the site as well as details of where the book can be bought from.  I’ve also included a PayPal buy now button so the book can be bought online easily.  Again, feel free to take a look at the site at http://www.odynbooks.co.uk.

The final website I have produced this month is an internal website for Herford Sixth Form College.  The website has been developed so that the college can efficiently gain access to applicant’s qualifications before final interview at the end of August.  On GCSE results day, every applicant will log into the website with their username and password provided to them by the college and input their GCSE grades.  These will then be automatically added to the college’s student records database.  The system is expected to be used by well over 1000 students!  This is another website I’m very proud of.  It is the first of a series of systems I am producing for the college that aim to improve the efficiency of the way in which the college operates.  I would provide a link to the system, but it isn’t really any use as you can’t log in without a username and password .  The best you’ll get is the screenshot on the right! Sorry.

There are a few other bits and pieces I could mention, not least including Project Metis, but these can wait for another time and another update (maybe later today depending on how I feel).

But for now, I think I will say goodbye and go make myself some food.