Website Team

[RyanCesiel]

I'll be going into my fifth year on the team and I have been the student lead on our website since I've been on the team. We've been fortunate enough to win a couple of the Best Website Awards, including at the Championship this year. I also work for Envato, as a marketplace author on their site, ThemeForest and I am also starting a media company, Propel Forward Media, to provide a range of services including website development.

Originally Posted by KevinGoneNuts

I want it to be fun for them so how can I make building a website fun?

Do your best to find students that actually want to learn about website development. I've had the most success with kids that were already interested in the Adobe suite or already use the computer heavily.

And, be a fun group. Be somewhat laid back, friendly, and fun to work with. Get things done, but don't be pushy.

Originally Posted by KevinGoneNuts

What are some tips you would say that would contribute to a successful, award winning website? (Yes I know of the criteria on the first website)

I found that having an award-winning website isn't always looking at the rubric and checking off each item as you complete it. Sure, that's what you should to do, but, to set yourself apart, you should be unique. Here are some ideas that judges really liked on our website this year:

• Homepage picture display/slider
• Social media pages and buttons on website
• Alumni spotlights and mentor recognition
• What is FIRST to Us? Video (Every judge at each competition made a not of pointing this out)
• Team Blog (Ah! Sorry! Never wrote a championship recap or off-season updates!)
• Resources Section

Originally Posted by KevinGoneNuts

How do you or your students run the meetings and do you have a group hierarchy?

We don't have much of a hierarchy other than student sub-team leaders, sub-team mentors, and the sub-team students (see here).

I think the changes we made this year, though, were key to our success versus previous years. Before, our website team was pretty exclusive and off on our own (it was primarily me).

This year, I really benefited from the help of others:

• Our video team created the "What is FIRST to Us?" video which really helped a lot!
• I created the site this year using Wordpress, and a lot of students helped with editing and creating all the student and mentor biography pages. Our team manager also expanded our team history page and timeline.
• We had several brainstorming sessions on how we can improve the website and a lot of good ideas came from people that don't necessarily work on the website (ex - Alumni spotlight, "What is FIRST to Us?" video, ect).
• Other guys helped scan old pictures and upload them.

[Dan Zollman]

Why do you need to "make" it fun?

In my view, a mentor's job is (when possible) not to make a program or a plan for the students, but instead to facilitate the students, let them drive themselves, and give them access to the tools and the knowledge they need in order to learn and create.

If coding isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without coding; if design isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without designing (not that I would endorse that path myself).

[quinxorin]

Originally Posted by Dan Zollman

Why do you need to "make" it fun?

In my view, a mentor's job is (when possible) not to make a program or a plan for the students, but instead to facilitate the students, let them drive themselves, and give them access to the tools and the knowledge they need in order to learn and create.

If coding isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without coding; if design isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without designing (not that I would endorse that path myself).

I would like to agree with Dan. The students will have fun - if they don't, then they shouldn't be building a website. I honestly think PHP is a really fun thing to write.

Here's how I run my web meetings (with myself, seeing as I'm my team's only webmaster): I sit down at the computer. I open up a file named "update.txt" that has a big list of everything that I still have left to do. I pick whichever one I feel in the mood for. I do it.

Of course, that approach definitely will not work if there's more than one person.

My recommendation to you as a mentor would be to sit back and let the students do everything. When they start pulling their hair out because their php if statement evaluates to true every single time, even when obviously false (somebody used "=" instead of "==", probably), you step in and point it out. Offer friendly suggestions about how to make code better, how to design well, or just completely new ideas - but let them do all the work.