by Laura Monico, social media editor

When was the last time you visited the Saegertown High School website? Were you even aware that there is one? Many students and staff of Saegertown High School had stopped visiting the school’s website due to its lack of updated content; however, this is no longer an issue. Technology Education teacher Mr. George Nahay and his multimedia class have taken on the task of revitalizing the school’s home webpage. Mr. Nahay and his students were approached by Principal Tom Baker with the proposition of rejuvenating the site, and they agreed that they were the right people for the job.

Before the update of the website could begin, Mr. Nahay needed to have permission to control the website from the district. This process took some time because teachers are not usually allowed to have editing capabilities of the school’s website, but this allowed Mr. Nahay and his students to learn the skills they needed in order to improve the site. “While our role for the website was being determined, we began learning about photography and other multimedia projects. Once I was given editing rights to the website, we began as a class to compile a list of changes that we felt should be made to improve the school website,” Mr. Nahay wrote.

The class has plans to make numerous improvements that include adding photos, updating the appearance, adding student and teacher resources, and a quick links sidebar.

The multimedia students have been split into two teams, photo and video, in order to make the changes efficiently. The photo team’s focus is to capture events from around the school to keep the website up to date and interesting to the viewers’ eye. In charge of the photo team are seniors Hannah Myers and Cheyenne Mast. Mast said, “I think our goal is to make it look nice so people will actually go to it and enjoy using it. I remember it used to be nice and now it’s boring and dull so we are improving it.”

Working alongside the photo team is the video team headed by senior Bailey Kozalla. Kozalla has been working with her classmates to create highlight videos around five minutes in length that will air weekly on loop on both the website and the televisions located throughout the school. The TVs will not have volume during the school day, so the videos will have subtitles. “The highlight videos will focus on all events that have occurred in the past week at SHS along with a schedule of upcoming events for students to participate in,” Mr. Nahay said. Senior Erika Calwell is looking forward to viewing this new project. Caldwell said, “I think it is a good way to keep the students informed about school activities and I think it will be beneficial in creating more school spirit. I am excited to watch what the multimedia class creates.” Kozalla is also excited for this new project and the effect it will have on the school.  “I think it will make our school day more entertaining,” Kozalla said.

The first video was posted to YouTube on Jan. 16 and the second video was posted the following week on Jan. 22; however, they were not linked to the website or displayed on the TVs. Eventually the TVs will be linked to YouTube and they will continuously loop the video. The videos that have already been posted were rough drafts. The class is waiting to link the televisions until they feel that the videos are more professional.

Principal Baker is glad that the televisions will be up and running on a consistent basis. “We have these televisions and we do not use them, so why don’t we use them,” Mr. Baker said. He is eager to see the first video. “I can’t wait to see the first video that we can play on them,” he said.

The multimedia class hopes that the updated website will be useful to the SHS community. Mr. Nahay wrote, “Our goal for the website is to become an online hub which will contain useful information, relevant updates, and some highlights of the great things happening at SHS.”

To keep up to date on all that is happening at SHS check out the newly renovated  website: https://sites.google.com/a/penncrest.org/shs/

If you find any mistakes or have any suggestions regarding the website you can email George Nahay at [email protected]