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
11/8-11/12 11/12-11/19 11/20-11/24 11/25-12/3
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/screenshots
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 Points Score Comments

Descriptions give the 40
reader an understanding
of what will be created
Document can be 30
understood by any
reader
Spelling and Grammar: 20
-2 pts. for up to 5 errors
-4pts. for 6-10 errors
-6pts. for 11+ errors
Webpage proposed is 10
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/>.