MEMO

To: Miss Jennie Enger

From: Drew M. Berens DMB

Date: Friday, October 22, 2010

Subject: Unit 4 Project Proposal: Website for

tutoring high school students in a variety of classes and
peer discussion boards.

The project I chose to do was to create a website for tutoring students in

high school. Many of the tutoring websites out there today are mainly for
students in college or secondary school. high school students are just
expected to have the opportunity to get all the help and tutoring they need
right in school. But with more students in extracurricular activities, it is
becoming more difficult for these students to also become well rounded
academically. Thus, I have proposed a website that gives these the students
the edge they will need to succeed in any of their classes.

Proposal
The project I have selected for my Unit 4 project proposal will be to design a
website to help high school students correspond with tutors and seek advice
from peers on course work. From my own experience, I recall how difficult
and stressful balancing school work and multiple extracurricular activities
was. There is much encouragement to be involved and become a well-
rounded high school student in order to prepare for college. With this
pressure of busyness, there is not much time left for students to seek extra
academic help from teachers or tutors after school. With the design of an
online face-to-face secure school site, students will be able to ask questions
and watch posted tutorials on the lessons that need their extra attention.
Students would also have the ability to communicate with their peers on a
discussion board to answer questions about classes. The use of this
technology would ease the stress of nightly homework time for parents and
students, enhance teacher-student interaction, and help students excel
academically.

Details: Writing
Many of the components that include writing a website are components that
only the programmer sees when done a particular way. But for the purposes
of this class, I will be unable to turn in raw code. The proposed project that I
will turn in will be very text heavy in the sense of descriptions of what I
intend to create along with input from various web based enthusiasts. When
I am finished with my project I will turn in a detailed list of what I would have
to do to create this website. It will be in the form of a report and will contain
pictures of already created websites to help me provide the best tutoring
website possible. The report will be at least three pages in length, double
spaced, and will give the reader a good sense as to what I would need to do
to create the website along with how I would do it.

Details: Visual or Technological Components

The technological components of this proposal may be very in depth in the
sense of professional terminology and proposals put forth in my description.
The webpage will be one that is very easy to navigate though and will give
students the opportunity to advance their education. The website will begin
with a log in page that will get the student directed to classes offered at their
school along with other students that are participating in the tutoring
sessions. Once the student has logged in, a screen will come up giving them
the opportunity to select all of the classes they are participating in that
semester/year to help tailor the website more to the individual student's
needs. As for other visuals on the website, I will place numerous buttons the
student will be able to click on; along with instant messaging, webcam
communication, and a discussion board open to all students enrolled in that
specific class. To display this in my report I would give the reader a screen
shot of what certain pages of the website would look like giving them a feel
as to how it will be set up along with the usability of it. Technically I will not
be creating a website of my own, but providing examples of other websites
that have thrived in the college community and provide these resources to
high school students. So essentially I will be just be getting a print out of
other websites to help show what I would intend to create when I would
make a website of my own.

OBJECTIVES
The goals of creating this webpage is to give students a better opportunity to
succeed in the academic world on their time. Being a student myself I know
that it is very hard to always do my homework on someone else's schedule,
especially when my schedule is much different than theirs. High school
students, especially those involved in extracurricular activities, have a
harder time fitting school work into their busy schedules since they have
class for 7-8 hours a day. It was always hard for me to find time to actually
sit down and do my homework on a nightly basis. With the creation of this
webpage I intend to:
• Help students succeed in school by giving them the opportunity to
communicate with both tutors and peers that are willing to work
together to come to a conclusion to the problem at hand.
• Give myself a better understanding as to what it all takes to create a
web site and how to design user friendly graphical user interfaces
(GUI).
• Help teachers to give the students the extra help they may need to
understand the course content .

Methods
To do this project I will need to familiarize myself with a multitude of
different web sources, of which are trying to assist students in their
education. This will also help give me more ideas as to what things should be
placed in my site and what things should be omitted. Which would be a
building block that I would use to begin the process of which I could begin to
create my own webpage, mostly just screen shots of other sites and
identifying what things I really like about them and how I would incorporate
them into my potential web page. Which would be followed by:
1) Identifying all the things that would be appealing to students, teachers,
and tutors alike, I would begin to give detailed descriptions of how I would go
about creating this website and the process I had gone though to develop my
final project.
2)Then I will begin to evaluate the coding process of the web site creation.
For the purposes of this project I will not write any code due to the fact that it
does not pertain to this course and would not benefit me any by doing so.
Overall it will mainly be research that I will be conducting to effectively
represent the web site I plan to "create". Then the screen shots along with
the descriptions that I will be giving as to why I wanted that specific detail on
my webpage and its significance.

Timeline
The timeline below is a list of things I plan to get done and in the order I plan
to get them done. They are all put in order of which I need to accomplish first
to finally create my finished product.
Tasks Week

11/12- 11/20-
11/8-11/12 11/25-12/3
11/19 11/24

1. Begin reviewing other

websites that tailor to
students needs

2. Select desirable traits of

my website

3. Begin rough draft of

interpretations of
terms/diagrams/screensho
ts

4. Progress Report due

(11/24)

5. Polish and revise rough

draft

6. Final Project due (12/3)

Evaluation Criteria
The areas that should be graded for this project are listed in the chart below
and consist of the main components of my project. Some of which are more
opinion orientated but give the creator a better idea as to where they need
to be working harder on their project and how they can better tailor their
future product to potential future users. The main components I chose to be
graded on are the understanding, neatness, uniqueness and helpfulness,
spelling and grammar, descriptions easy to follow, and the appeal of the
overall page I intend to create.

Item Max Scor Comments

Points e

Descriptions give 40
the reader an
understanding of
what will be created

Document can be 30
understood by any
reader

Spelling and 20
Grammar:

-2 pts. for up to 5
errors

-4pts. for 6-10

errors

-6pts. for 11+ errors

Webpage proposed 10
is unique

Total Score 100

Reading
As you will find listed below is a list of sources that I intend to use for my
project to help assist me in the creation of my website. Many of them are
tutoring websites, but all serve their own purposes. They will help me
develop a better website because they have set a standard down for me
already and given me a place to start. Some of the other sources I have
listed will help me create my website from the ground up and give me many
hints that I will need to consider. There are many more websites out there
other than the ones that I have listed below. I have selected just a few to get
me started and to give me a better edge when creating my own website.

Works Cited
Cramster. 21 Oct. 2010. 21 Oct. 2010 <http://www.cramster.com/>.

Create a Website. 21 Oct. 2010. 21 Oct. 2010 <http://www.quackit.com/create-a-website/>.

Free Homework Help. 21 Oct. 2010. 21 Oct. 2010 <http://www.studentquestions.com/>.

The Tutoring Hut. 21 Oct. 2010. 21 Oct. 2010 <http://www.tutoringhut.com/>.

Website Creation Tutorial for Beginners. 21 Oct. 2010. 21 Oct. 2010

<http://www.2createawebsite.com/>.