We recently completed a massive web site project for Australian United States Services in Education, or AUSSIE for short. AUSSIE is a New York based educational consulting company, with hundreds of consultants providing professional development services to schools around the country. AUSSIE’s old web site was a poor reflection of their forward-thinking and technologically-savvy work, so they hired us to help them build a new one.

The new site is powered by Drupal, our favorite content management platform, so AUSSIE has the power to do all of the day-to-day content and site management on their own. The site features blogs that will be available to all of their consultants, including audio and video content that will be streamed from the site and available in podcast form. The site uses SSL to encrypt the transfer of sensitive information like passwords, and ties in to AUSSIE’s event management service at eventbrite.com and PayPal account to handle online sales of their Teaching Comprehension CD ROM. Generally, the site provides AUSSIE the tools to meaningfully engage their huge educational community online.

On the the “front end” of the site, we worked with the graphic design supplied by an in-house designer to build a custom Drupal theme. The theme provides an engaging, attractive, and easy-to-use interface to the site, and of course it features code that’s semantic, valid, and optimized for search engines!

Lastly, importantly, we are providing thorough documentation and ongoing consultation to AUSSIE on how to use the site. We are excited to continue working with AUSSIE, both here at Dtek and at The Media Spot, where we are consulting with them on classroom technology integration. Check out the new aussiepd.com!

Last week we helped the Pratt Center launch a new blog called The Eminent Domain. From the site:

This website is a news, information and networking resource for New Yorkers working to influence the shape of their neighborhoods and make sure that development is an asset to their communities, not a force for displacement and destruction.

The site is built on WordPress, which serves as a simple content management system as well as a blogging platform: in addition to publishing blog posts about NY neighborhood development, the writers can manage the site’s pages and administer the site from WP’s administration area. It’s a powerful tool and we look forward to seeing The Eminent Domain’s contributors use it to promote just and equitable development in NYC.

Check out the site at theeminentdomain.org.