About
Our Project
|
Resources | Collaboration
| Challenges | Acknowledgements
| Our Team |
Resources
We used and learned many programs in order to create this website. In
order to create the website, we used Macromedia Studio MX. We designed
all of our graphics using Macromedia Fireworks. Our opening movie was
created with Flash MX. Dreamweaver MX was our web authoring tool. The
Macromedia programs were very helpful. In order to produce a podcast,
we had the opportunity to use Garage Band on an Apple MacBook. Learning
this program was a wonderful privilege! To create the movie "Megan
Plays the Violin", iMovie was used, again on the Macintosh platform.
In order to communicate with each other and keep the files in one place,
Mrs. Brandon set up a "Moodle" class for us. Moodle is a Content
Management System that provides a discussion board, calendar, space
to upload files and more. It was password protected so we could be sure
that our information was safe and secure. The Moodle site sits on our
own district server. Our blog was set up using WordPress and it, too,
resides on our district's web server. Our games were created using Quia.com.
This site used a myriad of programs, some of them new to us.
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Collaboration
In order to complete this comprehensive project, our team needed to
work together collaboratively. We put together our strengths to make
a fabulous website. Michele was excellent at finding images. She would
search the Internet in order to get top-quality photos and illustrations,
and then took the time to write for permissions. Michele also was very
talented when it came to creating the online games. Sam did a lot of
work on the layout of the site. She also helped to create some of the
graphics, such as the titles, and set up background colors. Megan designed
the majority of the site. She contributed to our blog and formatted
the text. Everyone researched specific topics, which we split up. By
doing so, we all learned quite a bit. No one was left doing too much.
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Team
Challenges
One challenge our team faced was that we are in different schools. Megan
and Michele attend one high school while Sam attends the other, but
within the same district. However, this made meeting very difficult,
since none of us is old enough to drive yet. Using Moodle made it easy
for us to store and find all of our information in one place that was
accessible through the Internet. (We all have Internet access both at
school and at home.) For the most part, everyone worked on their own.
Rarely were we all able to get together during the week. For this reason,
on school vacation days, our team would meet at District Office and
put in some hours of work together. In addition, Mrs. Brandon would
come to Megan and Michele's school about once a week to meet and check
on the status of our project. At these meetings, we shared our accomplishments
and talked about what needed to be done for the next meeting. Although
this system could be complicated, it was effective. We were able to
pull it together in the end, even though it often seemed impossible!
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank many people for helping us make this website
the best that it can be. First and foremost, we would like to thank
our coach, Mrs. Brandon, the Director of Instructional Technology in
our school district. She taught us many things. Without her hard work,
this site never could have been this good! Next, we would like to thank
all of the people who offered their help for this website. Thank you
Tamera, Heather, Lori, Megan, Sandy, Kerry, Chris, and Betty. You were
all so supportive and helpful! It is greatly appreciated! We would like
to thank Mr. John Rheinstein, C.P., and Megan's parents, Mary and Rich,
for their interviews. We'd like to thank Mrs. Carcova for helping to
trouble-shoot our opening Flash animation. She figured out what we did
wrong and instructed us how to make the correction. Thank you to the
Assistant Technology Director, Matt Weiner, for helping with our Guidelines
page, and for setting up our WordPress blog on the district's web server.
Finally, we would like to thank ThinkQuest for this great opportunity.
This competition has positively impacted all of us! This website never
would have been this good without the aid of such wonderful people!
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