Case studies Hartsdown Technology College

John Fulton, Head of Vocational Studies

Hartsdown is a mixed Technology College in Margate, Kent. It has 1,118 students aged 11 to 18.

Background

38 students were selected by teaching staff to participate in the competition. They were arranged into three teaching groups that operated in parallel with existing ICT lessons.

Our Webit project

To start with students were given details of the website, www.channel4.com/webit and were asked to investigate the competition and answer a number of questions about it. Then the possible content of the website that they were about to create was discussed.

Special areas on the network had been set up for the groups' use. This included a prepared desktop with applications that might be used to complete the task. These were allocated to each of the student groups.

The groups were then asked to name the theme of their websites. A brainstorming session within each group allowed them to plan their pages and prepare an outline diagram indicating the number of pages and who in the group would be responsible for what.

A web-building task appears in the year 8 ICT curriculum but in this case MS Publisher is used. We decided to introduce students to MS FrontPage and then allow them to make a free choice. As this software was new to them, online tutorials were made available in their work areas on the network.

All groups identified their website idea and came up with a wide range of topics from domestic violence to a new mobile phone.

We visited the Webit example sites to identify the features that made them successful including consistent web page formats, visual impact and the use of multimedia to grasp and keep the audience's attention. Groups were encouraged to create a template on which to base their pages. The function and the layout of the homepage was highlighted and a worksheet that included a page model was issued and discussed.

We demonstrated to students how to use Paintshop Pro to modify and manipulate images. Instruction on how to crop pictures and make the background of graphics was demonstrated and students were given individual help where necessary. Students were already familiar with how to use the scanner and a couple of the groups used this facility to scan in images that they had drawn.

The digital camera from the Art Department was made available for the groups' use and a number of students used it to take pictures, download them and include them in their websites.

We discussed the possibility of adding animations to web pages. Interested students were shown how to manipulate images repeatedly, save these images as GIF files and use a GIF animator to combine these images into an animation.

It is pleasing to see the interest that this work has created and a number of the keen groups have been coming along to the computer room open access sessions during their lunchtimes to continue work and in many cases their websites are beginning to take shape.

As a result of the competition the local press visited. I was interviewed and a number of photographs of the students were taken.

Student were encouraged to test their websites and ask other people to view them and make constructive comments about the content, ease of use and effective format. A number of problems were experienced by students when converting to HTML format or viewing their web pages through the browser and in many cases elements had to be resized and repositioned to improve the final appearance.

A great deal of last minute panic ensued as students worked to get their websites up and running!

What we got out of Webit

All in all, the project has been a great success and has inspired a lot of interest amongst the students. 9 websites were generated and all the participants had learnt a great deal about website construction. One group of Year 8 students came to me individually and asked to participate. They had generated their site at home without support and brought their final product into college on CD ROM.

"As well as developing their technology skills, the project also encouraged social awareness and the need for great responsibility in community issues." Julie Wilson, Vice Principal

Tips and advice

Test your sites on a number of different types of browsers, not just Internet Explorer, as this affects their final appearance.