Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Investigate
Homo Faber:
Environment:
• Make a study of different cultures and how they relate to each other.
• Create and follow a fitness plan with set goals to be met at the end of
the project.
Approaches to Learning
(10/20) I realized today that I should do some sort of project centered around
the ISB MUN program, because it would be interesting for me and would fit
the Areas of Interaction nicely. However, I am still unsure of the product that I
would create. A few possible ideas are: a website, a documentary video,
student interviews, an ISB conference, or a written yearly plan for future
MUN members to follow after I have graduated. The idea that most excites
me is the website, because I already have experience in web design, and it
would be useful for the ISB MUN club for the entire year. I will continue to
ponder which of these ideas I will choose for my Personal Project.
Reflection:
I had a bit of trouble coming up with two ideas for each Area of
Interaction. I’m not a very creative person, and it took me a few hours to
brainstorm all of the ideas listed in my process journal. I think that was the
only roadblock that I faced throughout the investigative portion of my
project.
Plan
The background of the body will be modeled after the New York Times’
website. It will have diagonal stripes of very light gray, alternating with white
stripes. I hope that it will be light enough so that it will not be distracting.
The main portion of the body will be a white rectangle with rounded
corners. The rectangle will have shadows on it so that it looks more realistic.
It will also have a drop shadow. This portion will be put on top of the
background to create the body. All of the website’s text and other
information will be displayed within this rectangle.
In the lower right region of the header, there will be four buttons to
serve as links to the other pages of the site: “Home”, “Research”,
“Calendar”, and “Contact”. The text of these buttons will be white. There will
be a strip of a solid color under each word, and each word will be assigned to
a different color. These colors serve to contrast from the black of the header,
and to make the buttons stand out.
(10/28) Today, I decided what will go on each of the pages. I want the
website to be as simple as possible, while still retaining its professional look.
I am going to use tabs on each page to create “sub-pages”. This eliminates
extra, unneeded pages.
On the “Home” page, I will have simply a news feed. This will be the
club’s source of news and information. For example, if I need to let the club
know about a changed due date, I will post a news article on the blog, and
the club members will periodically check the page to see new articles. I am
going to create a posting page so that I can post new articles even if I am
away from home.
On the “Research” page, I will have tabs for different types of research
links. There will be one tab for general MUN links, and another for India-
related links. I think that I will also eventually categorize the India-related
links by committees, so that delegates can access links that are helpful to
them.
The “Contact” page will simply be a form that will allow visitors to send
an email to either of the two ambassadors. If a visitor has a question about
the website or about the ISB MUN club, the contact form will be an easy way
to get more information.
I believe that these pages will perform the task of being simply
informational. They won’t have any attractive features yet, but I think I can
work on that later. Right now, I’m just focusing on making the website
functional enough so that people will want to use it, even just once in a
while.
Reflection:
no one likes disorganization and lots of clutter. Although the website may
appear simple on the outside, it will be very informative on the inside.
My progress for this portion of the project was very smooth, because I
already had a basic template and idea for what I wanted the website to look
like. Because I had already created a test mini-site for a friend, I just had to
decide what to call the pages. The thing that will take most of my time is
actually putting stuff into the pages. Other than that, the basic planning and
creating of the website template did not have any roadblocks.
Create
(10/30) I finished creating all of the graphics for the website today. It didn’t
take me very long to create the graphics by themselves; it took me a very
long time to cut the graphics up to be ready to place into Dreamweaver.
(11/7) Today I created rollover effects for the buttons in the header. There are
two states for each button: “off”, when the mouse is on hovering over it, and
“on”, when the mouse is hovering over it. I decided to make the colors in
each button a bit paler in the “off” state, so that when the mouse hovers
over it, the color will change to a much brighter shade. This creates dynamic
interest in the web page.
(11/13) I finished the news article posting system today. I believe that this
component of the website is the most technically difficult part to complete,
because it involves so many different things.
In order to create the system, I had to first create a data table in the
MySQL table. I called it tbl_isb_blog, conveniently enough. Within the table, I
created five different columns: number, title, author, date, and body. The
“number” column serves to place the articles in order from newest to oldest.
The other four columns are self-explanatory. When I was creating the table, I
had to look up a few SQL commands because I had forgotten them, but it
didn’t take much longer than I had planned.
After creating the table in the database, I had to create a posting form
on the website. This part was very easy. I just created text fields for title,
author, date, and body. Then, I connected Dreamweaver to the database, so
it could create the code necessary to make the form active.
Lastly, I created a dynamic table on the home page of the website. The
table is dynamic because it changes every time a new article is posted. I also
set the table to show only the last ten posts, because otherwise the home
page would be too long.
I did not have any problems while creating the posting system, and
when I tested it for the first time, it worked perfectly.
(11/23) I uploaded the entire website to my web server today. Today is the
first day that my website is actually online and fully functional. I don’t have
much on the website yet, but so far I have an introductory news article, basic
club information, calendar, last year’s history, and a contact form. I hope to
start collecting research links soon.
(11/28) I searched for a few research links on Google, such as India’s position
and view points on different world issues. I placed a few of these links on the
research page, along with some of the official Oregon MUN documents. I
think I need to put more links on the page quicker, because some of the
delegates are clueless as to where to begin researching.
Garg - 10
(12/7) Today I did two things: place a dragon logo into the header, and create
meeting plans. To create the logo, I simply searched for a drawing of a simple
dragon on Google. The only issue I had with this is that I needed a perfectly
horizontal dragon with clear edges. This took me a little while to find, but I
found one eventually. After finding one, I just opened it in Photoshop, painted
it completely white, resized it, and placed it into the header file. Finally, I
created a small reflection, and uploaded it to the web server.
Creating the meeting plans was very easy. All I had to do was use a
template for my Boy Scout troop meetings and change it a little bit. Then, I
had to upload the plans to the website. Now, delegates can see what will be
happening at future meetings.
(12/12) I revamped the research page today. I have been slowly adding
research links every day, but today I actually separated all of the links into
committees. Each MUN committee now has a section for links, including the
General Assemblies. I hope this will allow delegates to access the links
easier, and encourage more people to use the research page.
(1/9) After taking a break from the website, I decided to start working on it
again today. I started by adding a photo gallery to the “Program” page. I
placed the gallery in its own tab. To create the gallery, I used Coffeecup Flash
Photo Gallery, which is very useful software that creates good-looking Flash
galleries. All I had to do was specify the size and color scheme of the gallery,
and add images, and then upload the gallery to the web server. So far, there
are only a few pictures from last year and a few pictures of this year’s
meetings, but I hope to take more pictures and add them as I go along.
Garg - 11
(2/20) I have been taking lots of pictures of the weekly MUN meetings, and I
finally added them to the photo gallery today. I created two galleries within
the main gallery: Meetings and ISB Model World Summit. The summit was an
event that ISB hosted on February 15, and students from around Beaverton
came to practice their debating skills and to prepare for the conference. Mr.
Fox took many pictures of this event. Now, there are a lot of interesting
pictures to view in the photo gallery. I believe that the gallery serves as a
supplement to the written history, so that when future MUN delegates view
them, they will be better informed as to what happened in previous years.
To create this sliding feature, I made use of the Spry framework within
Dreamweaver. Spry is based off AJAX, which stands for asynchronous
JavaScript and XML. In short, Spry is meant to simplify everything from data
display to visual effects. All I had to do was convert each table cell containing
a date to a Spry sliding box, then type a short plan or description into each
box. Finally, I had to upload the Spry files to the website so that the sliding
boxes can run off the framework. I hope this new feature helps the delegates
take more advantage of the website.
(3/11) Today, I added another new feature to the website. I decided that it
was too much of a hassle to have to email the club members each time there
was a new article posted on the website. Now, every time I post a new
article, the website will automatically send an email to every club member
notifying them of the new post.
To create this system, I had to dive into the complicated PHP code on
the posting page. I looked for the part where it sends the text into the
database, and started my new code just before this section. I added PHP
code to send an email. In the “To” section, I simply copied and pasted the
club email list. In the “Subject” section, I typed “New Post at MUN Website”.
Garg - 12
In the “Message” section, I just typed a few sentences letting the delegates
know that there is a new post on the website, and to go read it because it’s
probably very important.
I tested the system as soon as I had finished it, and although it took
about five minutes to arrive, the email system did indeed work. Now that it is
in place, I do not have to send emails to the club myself, unless I don’t want
it to show up as a post on the website.
Reflection:
I think that there were a lot of modifications and adjustments that were
necessary throughout the creating stage of my project. For example, I had to
go back and change the name of the “Calendar” page to “Program”, so I
could put stuff other than just a calendar on that page. Most of the decisions
that I made were because I realized that something I had originally planned
was not going to work. I had to adjust parts of the website to make them
more functional and accessible to anyone who used it.
My progress during this stage was smooth in general, with some rough
parts. Most of the time, I knew what I was doing, and I was following my Plan
of Action. My Plan of Action had specific due dates for each component of the
website, so I knew how to manage my time. The only times my progress
became rough was when I changed parts of the website halfway through the
create stage, because I decided that they were not good enough.
Evaluate
(4/22) After a long year of hard work, I have finally finished my Personal
Project. My website is complete and has been used many times by many of
the MUN club members.
All in all, I think that my Personal Project meets my original intent, and
it is mostly a success.