Kansas Music Review

Like a school custodian emptying desks and chairs into the hallway in order to complete major repairs in the classroom, summertime is also when most code upgrades are completed within KMEA's wide world of web. This makes it possible to focus on the work being done without having to worry about how much it impacts our ability to operationally support KMEA members and their music programs. 2015 has seen a major overhaul of KMEA's web properties, starting with the ISW website which debuted at the 2015 In-Service Workshop and is highlighted in the Spring 2015 KMR.

I'm reminded of a program run by Google called the "Summer of Code." Google invites a number of up and coming web developers to come spend some time at the Googleplex working side by side with their engineers on various open source projects. In the 11 years this program has existed, these programmers have built over 50 million lines of code, some of which you might have unknowingly used in your own tech travels, but I digress. This summer saw a number of new KMEA projects get off the ground, with much of the work beginning back in April and May.

KMEA Website
www.ksmea.org
The biggest project of the summer was... the KMEA website itself. Planning started back in January and the new site came online in mid-August. This new website is built on a "responsive" design, meaning it can be viewed on any size of device (desktop, notebook, tablet, smartphone). The website responds to the user's device and delivers a layout that works well for that device. Just as with the previous website, we will always be looking for ways to make improvements as the new website grows over time.

KMEA Systems Site
systems.ksmea.org
There are two aspects to KMEA's web environment: informational and operational. The new KMEA website will focus on providing the informational service, while data management, such as registration forms, are being moved into a new KMEA Systems site. This site now contains the All-State Managers, district honor group registration forms, clinic proposal forms, etc. Having all these in one place makes it much simpler to manage the operational side.

KMEA Members Site
members.ksmea.org
Beginning this winter, we will be holding all KMEA elections at the district level in the new KMEA Members website. All KMEA members need to visit this site and affiliate their KMEA membership with the KMEA district in which they work. This will allow each member to vote in the appropriate district election when the time comes. This site also allows members to monitor their membership expiration date and membership status. One very important function which this website cannot provide is membership renewal. You will need to visit NAfME's site for that.