I designed and developed the web site for a dual immersion program housed at
DeLaVeaga Elementary School. The Dos Alas Dual Immersion Program was
established six years ago as stand-alone program within in the Santa Cruz
County Schools district. The program aspires to provide resources that
will inform current and prospective enrollee’s families about the dual
immersion instructional model and communicate site-specific information.
Internet-based resources allow parents and guardians to learn more about the
instructional model at their convenience, are cost effective, and can be
updated with less effort than hard copy handbooks. During the initial meeting
with the school's principal, I agreed to redesign and develop the website for
DeLaveaga Elementary School in addition to the working on the dual immersion
program's web site.
Link to Standard:
I conduced front-end analyses to inform my design decisions. Data collection
and analysis ensured that the web site meets stakeholder's needs. I then
selected two Adobe products and two web 2.0 tools for use in this
project.
Software or Tool
Use
Adobe Dreamweaver
Web site
authoring software
Adobe Photoshop
Manipulated
images for site, banner, and navigation
The website is designed to adhere to web design principles communicated by
Robin Williams and John Tollett (2005) and to comply with section 508 of the
Americans with Disabilities Act. It is important to note that my lack of
familiarity with 508 regulations and a short time line for completion may
result in elements that are not fully accessible. The visually impaired
individual testing my site using a screen reader did not find compliance errors
in her review.
Challenges and Opportunities
I was faced with scope creep during my first meeting with the school's principal.
The individual who was working on the redesign of the school's website had not
delivered as promised. I agreed to take on this work in addition to the
work involved with the dual immersion program web site. He liked that I
was developing each page of the dual immersion site in the Spanish and English
language. We decided to create each page of the school's site two
languages as well. I had no idea what I was getting myself into because
this was my first experience building a web site.
Learning to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop while making progress toward a
deliverable was difficult. My instructor, Dan McDowell, was an incredible
resource for this project. He explained how to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop to
realize my vision for the site when I couldn't figure something out on my own.
With his assistance, I created the buttons and banner and tweaked the template
to accommodate my customized elements. Even with Dan's help, the project
consumed more time than I initially budgeted for completion. I now have a
better grip on the amount of time it takes to develop a website from scratch
and create realistic time line for completion in the future.
The previous developer for the school's site placed a web-based calendar, RSS
Calendar, in the page he completed. After investigating the calendar's
features, I created new accounts for the school and dual immersion program so
that each could have an individualized calendar of events. I also set up a
Yahoo Group for the program to be used as a communication tool for the site. In
two years, seventy-two individuals have found the group on their own and
requested membership. I've learned that social networking sites can be
powerful marketing tools.
Adding media to the site proved to be more difficult than I anticipated.
Permission to publish photos of students and their school projects must be
given in writing by parents and guardians. The school's ill developed
storage of the release forms prevented the addition of many photographs and
videos clips to the site.
This project gave me the opportunity to develop new skills that I share with my
colleagues and my students. Although the process was difficult, I
appreciate the opportunity to round out my technological skill set. I
look forward to teaching my school's first web design course in the 2009-2010
school year. I selected the Williams and Tollett Web Design book used in
this course as the text for the course I will teach. I am prepared to
guide my students through the web site development processes I practiced in
this class in addition to facilitating the use of software.
Professional and Personal Growth This work represents personal
strengths I bring to the field of educational technology:
Autodidactic learning
Willingness to experiment and persist with new software and tool
Ability to select software and web 2.0 tools that support user's needs
Perhaps the most valuable lesson
I learned relating to the field of educational technology is that of planning
for growth. I was so focused on delivering the site by a certain date
that I did not thoroughly consider the maintenance aspect of the dual immersion
program pages. My son attends the program and I built the web site; I became
the web master by default. I created an onerous update process by not housing
the program pages in a server for which I have direct access. The site's
growth is seriously hindered by this issue.
References
Tollett, J. & Williams, R.,
(2005). The Non-Designer's Web Book: an Easy Guide to Creating, Designing, and
Posting Your Own Web Site (3rd edition). Berkeley: Peachpit Press.
Worldwide
Web Consortium (n.d.) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Retrieved July 4,
2009 from http://www.w3.org/WAI/
