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Steamboat Springs — Projects created in Kipp Rillos' class at Soroco High School now are held to an international level of scrutiny, as his technology class is constructing a new Web site for the school district.

Rillos, with South Routt School District Technology Director Shane Antyr, presented the new, student-created Web site to the South Routt School Board on Thursday night.

"From the perspective of a student, there's a lot more motivation to work on something that's real-world, instead of something that's partitioned off and only other students get to see," Antyr said. "Anyone in the world can look at their work, and there's a lot of pride in that."

The site was created by seven students in the technology class and will allow teachers to create individualized class pages.

Junior Derek Crawford, who worked on the "What's New" section of the site, said the prospect of having the class project online made the project more meaningful.

"I felt like it's out there for everyone to see, and it feels like you accomplished more," he said.

The students created a page for each staff member, complete with an e-mail address and photo. Those template pages then were turned over to the staff members to add more specific data. Teachers can add photos, music, class documents and other updates for students to access at home.

The Web site also has room to expand, Rillos said. The site could be used to publish information for only staff, staff and students or for the public. It also could be expanded to host blogs, he said.

As an example of the site's capabilities, Rillos showed the School Board the site created for the technology class. Antyr included links for tutorials on Web programming.

"I think these classes are going to be a good tool in the long term for students who are gone for band or sports or whatever," Rillos said.

Antyr said this project is the opposite of the way many districts are using technology.

"Everyone : is trying to do it in a top-down kind of approach where you teach the teachers, and they'll teach the students," Antyr said. "What we're doing here is kind of the reverse of that."

Board members were informed they have their own profile sites.

"From where it was to where it is now, it seems like light years," said School Board President Tim Corrigan. "I can see there's no limit to what you can do. I'm excited."

Mader's contract approved

The board also unanimously approved a two-year rollover contract for Superintendent Scott Mader, after an executive session to review Mader's performance.

"The School Board would like to acknowledge Scott Mader's excellent performance in his duties as our superintendent for the last year, and we're happy to have him again for next year," Corrigan said.

Mader was hired at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year to replace former superintendent Kelly Reed.

Mader served as superintendent of Hayden schools from 1998 to 2004 before moving to Denver, where he worked for the Colorado Department of Education for one year before becoming principal of The New America School.