Week 1:
As, I was not able to attend lessons, I was unable to understand the concept of dreamweaver, and the task to create our own website. At first I found it very difficult to make my own site, so I decided to browse around other sites at first. In the first week I spent time researching and exploring different websites, to get a good idea on how to carefully structure and layout my website. In the different websites I saw I noticed that the ones with brighter colors and more pictures grabbed my attention, and the ones with no pictures and less colors seem to look very dull and boring. So, I decided to choose bright colors like orange, blue, green and yellow, and to make the site more happy rather than dull I decided to keep the background white, so the colors could stand out. At first I started laying out the different pages that I had and add the necessary colors. I would then later on add the pictures related to the information I choose. At first I explored different features in "Wix", I tried to use as many features I could to show a higher level of understanding and skills for using this online website making site called "Wix". It especially helped to use the "Help" button in Wix, as whenever I was stuck or was unsure what to do, I clicked this button and it guided me to the features I required. When creating my site I kept in mind that it should be easy to use and user friendly.
Week 2:
In the second week I started to build my site further, I started to plan out what all I am going to be writing, and so I made an about page which talked about all the things that will be on the site. I started to add pictures which were relevant and appropriate, this made my website look eye catching and overall looked really nice. I was really happy with how it was turning out, I started to add hyperlinks, and they were successful all my hyperlinks work. After creating the about page I went back to my home page to add audios and more visuals. I also planned to put a youtube video for learning basic phrases on the home page. I was able to complete these pages in a few days and next I moved on to my approach page I had come across some research which I had found interesting so I thought to add that in, along with fun facts about speaking French. I also talked about all the different activities that will be on the site for the users and readers to do to learn French. After research and looking at many different language teaching sites I wanted to make my site look more professional and similar to the sites available online, so I created a register page, this page had contact details about the site things like location, email and phone number. I also made a box for any suggestions or questions that users or readers had. Much like many other sites that I have seen I have also made a suggestion and questions box. When creating the site some change were made from my original idea, as the theme that I originally wanted to choose was a little dark and adultish.
After exploring different sites I had a clear understanding that my site should be bright and colorful, as my target audience is younger than me and will be attracted to these bright and lively colors. I have tried to make my site look like a kid site, for doing so I have picked out kid pictures, and animated pictures, that explain the information in a fun way. The aim of my site is to keep my target audience engaged so that they don't get bored and leave. To do this I made a checklist of a few things I wanted on the site. I wanted to have at least one picture one each page, I wanted videos that had good visuals, and I wanted to good audios. I am happy that I was successfully able to do all of these things. My website started coming together, now I had to add the lessons and quizzes page.
Week 3:
In week 3 I started making a list of things I wanted in my lessons and quizzes page. I planned the layout to make sure it looked nice and looked organized. I did not want to fill the page with information making it looked cluttered, as I have seen a few sites like this and personally I think they do not look nice at all. It makes it hard to read and the user or reader does not feel the need waste time on the site, and will eventually leave. So, I made sure my information was evenly spaced out and organized well so the presentation looks neat and readable to the reader or user. For my lessons I clearly labelled all the topics so that the would be segregated and it would be easy to identify the different topics for the user or reader. I have made the title of the topics bold and clear and written it in white capital letters on a horizontal yellow strip, which highlights the title even more. The topics I had chosen to use in my website were: greetings and courtesies, common fruits, basic colors, French alphabets A - Z and numbers 1 - 100. The topics greetings and courtesies, common fruits, and basic colors are clearly labelled with their English and French name, including an audio, to learn how to say the word correctly. I think it is important to have audios, so the user or reader can learn how to correctly say the word, and learn how to pronounce it. The common fruits and basic colors also have respective pictures for greater understanding, making it easier to learn the words. For the French alphabets A - Z and numbers 1 - 100 I decided to put 2 youtube videos with good visuals to learn this as this does not require much explaining, and can be learnt by watching the video a couple of times.
After I finished my lessons I moved on to my quizzes. On the top of the page I decided to write a motivational sentence, to get the user or reader excited for attempting the challenge. The sentence I wrote was "Are you up for a French quiz? Let's do it!", and under this I decided to make 3 different quizzes which tested different skills and knowledge of the topics on the site. For the first quiz I created a word search, where you have to find basic phrases, the phrases were written in a column right next to the word search. In the second quiz there is a English word and you have to choose from he 4 choices, the right answer in French. This quiz has a timer, so this will test how quickly the reader or user can complete the quiz. The last quiz is about numbers, similar to the second one, the number will be written in English and you have to choose the correct number in French from the 4 choices. After I completed my website I went over each page and tested all the buttons to make sure they were working, and checked hyperlinks to see if they were leading to the right page. After I was fully satisfied with my website I published it.
I really enjoyed this project as it was interactive between French and IT. I haven't done a project liked this before and it was fun to work on the 2 subjects. I enjoyed mixing mediums from both subjects. I would have wished to have more time for this project, to experiment on more things and add more mediums to my site to make it more interactive and full of content. It was hard to manage time to work on this project, as I had to work on assessments on other topics. Next time, if I get more time I would specifically like to work on my lessons, as I feel I could have added many more things for the users and readers to learn. Overall I liked this project and hope that we get to do this with a different subject next time.
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