Students work as a web-development team, each performing a specific role.
Students change web page layouts.
Students change navigation characteristics of pages.
Students add text, lists, tables and images to web pages.
Include the unique perspective of others and reflect on one's own perspective to examine digital artifacts from multiple viewpoints from a diverse audience.
Iterate on website to communicate information with increased relevancy to a target audience.
In this section, students dive deeper on creating a cohesive Google website. Students develop their individual pages, amend basic content, and format the layouts and navigation options for each page. Students should rotate roles for this exercise and should spend the majority of their time developing their individual pages.
The teacher breaks up design time with short lectures to describe the functionality and use of bullets, tables, and images in web pages. The teacher should also lead a discussion on the purpose and design of navigation elements (menu bars and hyperlinks). The teacher should expect at the end of this section that pages be fully populated, layouts will be similar with some variation, and technical elements such as tables, lists and images are present on most pages. These technical elements will be investigated as HTML code subsequently.
We provide a partial list of elements in Google sites that should be introduced to students. Teachers may want to extend this list and build their own website grading rubric accordingly.
Also, students will share their websites with others to elicit feedback from the website's intended audience. The goal of this exercise is to give and receive consumer-type feedback. This is not a review of student technical web design capability. Students will use the 4-box method of gathering feedback from potential users or customers to help guide the experience.
The students will be eliciting feedback from their peers. This is an important step for the students so they can improve their products. Since the type of feedback being requested by peers can be subjective in nature (since they are providing input as an audience), it is important that the teacher coaches the students about being respectful of the topics and problems chosen by their peers and when giving and receiving feedback. Teacher should remind the students that everyone in the class chose a topic that had personal importance to them. It is important for the teacher to also emphasize to the students that the purpose of the comments is to help their peers to improve their products and/or narratives.
We modified the 4-box feedback exercise to have students individually critique the website, and then within a team ask each other what feedback is most important. The team should provide the team they are critiquing with a single team-based 4-box with only the most important elements, as well as their individual 4-box sheets.
Activity 1 (Budget 10 minutes)
Students select new team roles.
1. Students rotate or select new team roles (server admin, project manager, quality assessment, and layout designer). In addition to managing their own pages, each student will perform a function associated with their designated role.
Activity 2 (Budget 10 minutes)
Teacher introduces list of expected elements.
1. The Teacher hands out the list of elements that students are expected to include in their website by version 3, noting they have two iterations to work on it. The teacher can use the partial list of elements in Google sites or can create their own.
Activity 3 (Budget 140 minutes)
Students create version 2 of their website.
1. Before beginning, the server administrator from each team signs into their Google account and must create a archival backup of the original site. (Manage Site-->General-->Copy this site). The teacher should instruct the student as to what naming convention is preferred for the backup (e.g. websitenamebackup1).
2. Students continue to work on their individual webpages, per their plan. Students develop additional content, add images, bullets and tables. The teacher can provide just-in-time lectures on design elements. Advanced students can perform additional problem research, add new pages, or look at advanced functionality (such as inserting chat, YouTube videos, etc.).
3. The layout designer must ensure there are 2, 3 or 4 different layouts in the website and that they are all using a similar layout. The layout designer should make sure for each layout similar content is being presented in the same section and fill out a layout managers worksheet. All layout disputes should be resolved by the layout designer. The layout manager should also oversee any changes to the main theme or navigation bar choices.
3a. The server administrator must make sure that all images, videos, files and attachments that are used in the website are uploaded to a central file that can be accessed by all team members. The server administrator should also ensure that the sitemap is up to date, and correct. This can be found in Manage Site-->Pages. Pages can be rearranged by dragging and dropping pages.
4. Quality assurance must once again review and sign off on the final version of all individual pages, once complete, using the Quality Assurance Checklist.
5. When nearing completion, the project manager must ensure that the new site is on its way toward meeting the new technical requirements described, and should fill out the Version 2 Project Manager Checklist. This checklist is based on the partial list of elements provided above. If the teacher wants to extend that list of elements, the teacher will need to update this checklist or supply a new one. The project manager and the team should be coached that the website is not expected to be complete at this point, and so it is OK to mark "no" if the site does not yet meet that requirement.
6. The project manager must report on any tasks that were not completed using the project manager checklist. Again, the team should be coached that there are many reasons why a task may not have been completed. It is not good or bad. It is the duty of the project manager to report it, so that it can be addressed in the next version.
Activity 4 (Budget 10 minutes)
Teacher describes task and tool.
1. Teacher presents the Presentation 4box Feedback Form again.
2. Teacher explains the purpose of the form is to provide critical feedback and explains the importance of feedback from customers and other designers during the design-cycle.
Activity 5. (Budget 40 minutes)
Student teams exchange websites and provide feedback.
Each student team shares their website with another team.
Each student individually reviews the other teams website, and individually completes a 4-box.
Students work as a team to identify the most important elements of the collection of 4-box feedback forms. Students should ask each other for each box, are there patterns to the feedback and what feedback is most important.
After they review each others websites students should ask each other clarifying questions about: (a) content they did not understand; (b) design choices (e.g. why did you choose to layout the site like this?); (c) navigation choices (why is the menu like this? why do you have this link here?). The teacher can model this behavior for students, by asking (with permission) students from a high-performing team to explain a web page. Students should focus this discussion on what the team agreed are their "most important" feedback ideas.
After asking clarifying questions, student teams should fill out a team-based 4box feedback form for the presentation they just reviewed. Students may review their feedback if they have any time remaining.
Activity 6 (Budget 30 minutes)
Students team-assess the web site and create a team plan.
Based on their 4box feedback and peer reviews, students review the current state of the site and complete The Version 2 Team Review and Contract.
The team reviews the project managers review document. When reviewing the project manager's checklist for this version, it is important to check that individuals included the technical elements in their pages necessary to meet the website technical requirements as well as any elements that were not completed from the previous contract.
The team updates their contract to ensure that their version 3 website will meet all technical requirements from the project manager's checklist. The project manager's checklist should be submitted along with the team vision review.