Thanks to Amy Kant, Milwaukee Public Schools is beginning to get its interwebs in order.
Next week, the district will officially launch the first fruits of her labor to create web sites for all of the nearly 180 MPS schools.
Kant, who started on Vliet Street a couple months ago, got going with 10 schools – Academy of Accelerated Learning, Hawley, Obama, Browning, Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Language, Gwen T. Jackson, Lloyd Barbee Montessori, Morgandale, Garland and Westside Academy.
Last year community members, including this one, were invited to take part in the district's marketing think tank, on a volunteer basis, which met monthly to talk about MPS' communication with the community, its image and brand, use of social media, the web and more.
The hard-working Molly Quirk then prepared a report on the think tank's discussions and findings and part of that was the improvement of the district's vast array of web sites.
In addition to school pages on the district portal, like this one, most schools also had a self-created web site like this one. Most were basic, not especially attractive, and because they seemed rarely updated, they weren't especially useful, either.
Kant's job is to help rectify the situation and she's using WordPress sites and StudioPress software to move forward.
Here is one of the sites from the first batch to be completed. They are being presented to schools tomorrow.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
