Student-Produced Website Strikes the Heart of Lakeshore Lanes Owner
By Tasha Candela
Standing out in the crowd is essential in a job interview. Employers will be judging you based on the content of your response, the design of your application materials, and the color of your wardrobe. Just like an interview situation, establishing a web presence and standing out with quality content, design, and color is key to attracting business. In my advanced web design class, students were tasked to create a website for Lakeshore Lanes, a local bowling alley. Using basic design principles mastered in the introductory class while continuing to learn more HTML, CSS, and photo-editing techniques, each pair presented a finalized website to the owner by the end of the trimester. Students had roughly thirty-five hours to complete their websites. That equates to a mere 1.5 days. With a tough deadline, advanced web design gurus had to begin work immediately in order to accomplish this goal!
The National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) were my guiding principles in facilitating this project and I will briefly outline all six and share how my students mastered each one.
Creativity and Innovation
Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had
an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference. This phrase by Nolan Bushnell is true for my students. On day one when I walked my juniors and seniors through the advanced web design syllabus and told them about the Lakeshore Lanes project, I could see sparks – each student began buzzing about their thoughts. As a teacher, it is wonderful to see everyone enthusiastic about an assignment. I knew that I had them hooked. I also knew that I would have a lot on my plate to ensure their success. The facilitation part proved to be easy. My students had ideas. Superior ideas. Creating a product for someone else and then being given the chance for it to be seen by the public is all that was needed.
Communication and Collaboration
Much like in the real world, students were able to work with a partner. There were countless benefits for doing this. First,
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students were able to collaborate and communicate at all times. As the cliché goes, two heads are better than one. Passion would ignite from idea conversations. At first, I suggested having one person in charge of the copy and the other person in charge of graphics. This worked well, but the more hours students invested into the project, the more I noticed the pair working simultaneously on all aspects of the site. You could sense frustration at times because of faulty concept ideas or absences. As ideal as it would be to not have kinks in a team, that is not the case. They learned how to work through problems. From late night phone calls and sleepovers to back-and-forth in-class idea-sharing conversations, students mastered the art of getting along and learning from each other. Moreover, the need to be persuasive to convince a partner to use your idea was becoming more important than ever. It was enjoyable to watch from the sidelines as my students had tongue battles fit for a boxing ring. In the end, the sheer quality developed from two-person teams and the lessons in soft skills would make all players victorious.
Research and
Information Fluency Choosing a business that students genuinely care
about is important. As part of our physical education program, students use Lakeshore Lanes to bowl. They have experienced it. They know the owner, Mr. Jim LaHood, the product, and the facility. These factors made building their website easier because they already established a personal connection to it. With budget issues, selecting a business that is close to your school is another essential tip. Lakeshore Lanes is a five-minute walk from our school. This key detail saved time and headaches when obtaining information for the website. After speaking with the owner, I scheduled a 2-hour field trip to the bowling alley as an informational session and photo opportunity for the students. Now that they had the framework for the website, each team realized that the biggest task of all would be piecing it together.
Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making Throughout this project, students had to think critically, problem solve, and make decisions. In the beginning, I
Fall 2011 | MACULJOURNAL
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