Change in education is not always an easy task but you will hear from Dr. Ed Hardiman, Headmaster, St. John's Prep (Danvers, MA) and Rob DiMartino, Director, finalsite (East Hartford Connecticut) talk about New Media Literacies, Then and Now, and Leadership Strategies that can move your institution into the "Good to Great" 21st Century Model.

Presented by: Rob DiMartino & Dr. Ed Hardiman (Headmaster at St. Jonh's Prep, MA)

The latest version of the Calendar Manager will allow you to create, organize, and manage multiple calendars on your site. This session will focus on the functionality & best practices for assuring constituents don't miss out on any of your important events. Highlights of this session include creating different calendar types (from normal calendars to block, exception, and live calendars), importing/exporting events, styling your calendars, and more. Beginner Training. Participants should have basic CMS knowledge.
Presented by: Laurie Murphy

Ever wonder what launching  or relaunching a website would really be like? Let Bethany Silvestri share an insider’s look into the journey of deployment, finalsite-style. Milestones, partnerships with designer and project manager, tips to a successful and speedy deployment, and much more will be covered.

Presented by: Bethany Silvestri

It's been a long time in the making but it's worth the wait! The forms manager has been upgraded and integrated into the finalsite CMS. In addition to a new user interface we've added new functionality such as:

* Drag and drop form creation with flexible layout options

* Granular user permissions per form to view, edit, publish, and view results (no more form owner!)

* Save and Return feature for form submitters

* Searchable forms categories

* Auto-calculation of multiple field values

* Conditional fields (fields that appear only when a specified response is given)

* Pagination for long forms

* Validation fields for email, etc

* Commonly used field blocks for Name, Address

* Save your own dropdown field lists for reuse

* Create your own form templates

We're very excited to show you how you can start using all of the new features!
Presented by: Kara Stanley

How our alumni, parents, students, and other constituents communicate online has changed dramatically. As schools, we need to recognize this shift and use new tools and strategies to re-engage our audience. In this webinar, sponsored by ECIS and finalsite, we’ll discuss this communication shift, the role of social media, the importance of positioning your website as the main hub for online communications, and search engine optimizations and Google Analytics. Join us and discover new ways to meet your marketing goals.

Presented by: Jon Moser & Michaela Seeger (Development Director at the International School of Zug & Luzern, Switzerland)

Blogs and Forums are another great way to communicate with your site visitors. Blogs are intended as a one-to-many communication, whereas forums are for many-to-many. This session will focus on the recently updated Blogs/Forums module that includes some new and useful features, including:

• Save/Edit drafts of Blog or Forum posts before publishing

• Option to view forum responses in chronological order, a hierarchical "tree" view, or traditional threaded view

• Categories for Blog posts, sortable by dropdown list or a full list in a banner element

• End users can sign up to receive email notifications of responses to their Forum posts

• Quoting feature for easily inserting quoted text from previous posts

• Private Forum responses between moderator and end user (great for providing private feedback to students in classroom discussions)

• Filter Forum entries by contributor to quickly find posts by a particular person (teachers may find this useful for extracting all the posts made by a student)

• Option to hide existing comments from posters until they have posted their own comments (teachers might use this as an "anti-plagiarize" feature when students are asked to make comments on a topic)

• Option to allow or disallow posters to edit their own posts after publishing

This training is intended for beginners who have basic knowledge of content editing.
Presented by: Ritsa LaFond

Website success is within reach for every school. By choosing just the features you need, focusing on the needs of your unique constituents, and collaborating with experts you too can take your website from good to great. Join us as we highlight stories of success from the archives of finalsite Share. You’ll learn about launching a website, working with finalsite staff, and measuring your success. Perfect for the school interested in launching or redesigning its website.

Presented by: Lorrie Jackson

Engage and connect with your constituents using fresh, current and accurate content. This finalsite Webinar highlights the concept of Content Strategy and how it can improve the usability of your website. Topics covered include: targeting and engaging your audience with quality content, writing for the right audience, writing for the web, updating content, and encouraging contribution. Also included are tips for promoting your new content such as search engine optimization, intuitive navigation, alerts, RSS feeds and more.

Presented by: Bethany Silvestri

Partner Webinar Series: ECIS & finalsite

While not designed exclusively for international schools, many of finalsite's powerful tools are of particular use and value to institutions involved in international education. Join us as we explore website features and tools of special interest to the international community. Topics include: dual or multi-language websites; currency, date, and time format; site lock-down; multi-language spell-checks; universal keyboard; PagePops; and much more.

Presented by: Clive Ungless, Director of International Operations, finalsite

Partner Webinar Series: ECIS & finalsite

Join us as we explore digital storytelling as it pertains to independent school marketing and communication. Why do we tell stories anyway? Who are the new storytellers of the digital revolution and whom do we need to be following? We’ll answer these questions and examine the importance of narrative in effective branding and communications, the future challenges for schools, and the emerging role of the communication director.

Presented by: David Willows, Director of External Relations at the International School of Brussels

Partner Webinar Series: ECIS & finalsite

Engage and connect with your constituents using fresh, current and accurate content. This finalsite Webinar highlights the concept of Content Strategy and how it can improve the usability of your website. Topics covered include: targeting and engaging your audience with quality content, writing for the right audience, writing for the web, updating content, and encouraging contribution. Also included are tips for promoting your new content such as search engine optimization, intuitive navigation, alerts, RSS feeds and more.

Presented by: Bethany Silvestri, Marketing & Sales Executive, finalsite

Partner Webinar Series: ECIS & finalsite

here is a wealth of tools, utilities, plug-ins, and other handy little pieces of technology that make life easier on the web. Not only do they save you time and energy, they also are not expensive—in fact, many are free! Discover this existing and emerging time-saving technology made for the web. Topics include freeware, safety tips, keeping “it” in the cloud, and webmaster tools. Also covered are suggestions for sharing, collaborating, editing and teaching, particularly with photos and video.

Presented by: Brooke Peterson, Support Specialist, finalsite