MARACAS is a small group class for children ages 2-8 based on the Spanish language. The program uses music, interactive play, literature and crafts to expose children to the sounds and rhythms of Spanish in a fun and exciting way. MARACAS needed to establish an online presence to showcase their courses and professional development offerings.

Primary Goals for the Website

• Design a site that communicates to three different audiences: parents, schools (teachers/administrators) and educators (those who want to develop a language program but do not live live near MARACAS).
• Provide a way for the MARACAS team to maintain their own site as needed
• Allow people to access registration forms in a downloadable format (MARACAS did not want to accept registrations online in Phase I) and allow people to subscribe to the MARACAS enewsletter.

Solutions

The Internetworking Group designed and developed the site using the Joomla! open source (free) content management system. The MARACAS team is busy teaching children and training other teachers how to do the program, and the easy-to-use Joomla interface allows them to make quick updates to the site without trying to navigate complex code.

The Internetworking Group also designed the site to provide quick access to content geared toward each of the three audiences by placing colorful boxes on the homepage with the appropriate content listed in each one.

Site visitors can subscribe to the MARACAS enewsletter via the homepage and other places within the site. The MARACAS team can manage the subscription list and also send newsletters through the Joomla! content management system.

Visit http://www.maracas123.com.