To practice programer-to-client skills, Web Design and Animation teacher Denise Snow assigned juniors to redesign personal websites for teachers.

“They created a project that is live, it’s on the internet and they have a client that they can have feedback from, as well as me and the other students,”  Snow said. “It’s a real life portfolio based project.” 

While working in groups of two to three, students were assigned a faculty member, such as Freshman Studies teacher Henry Castillo and English 11 teacher Laura Penrod. During class, juniors met with their client to consult them on photos, color schemes and design.

“I plan to make a more modern and clean-looking website that not only has student resources, but also shows a little of Castillo’s personality,” junior Jocelyn Miller said. “It is hard because we have to use WordPress rather than just coding. It’s harder now that we have less tools–when you code, there are no limitations but WordPress is different.”

As they complete the project, juniors are learning the skills they need to be able to successfully work with a client’s ideas. 

“It is going well right now, I have my design ideas and now it’s just a matter of building the website,” junior William Grube said. “The most rewarding part will be when I can finally see the website running online and show it to everyone else.”

At the end of the project, students will present their redesigned websites, comparing the before and after, and then they will be graded by the teacher they chose as their client.

“[My goal is] to have teachers and students collaborate together to create a positive image for the school with their use of websites,” Snow said. “[I am most excited] to see teachers and students both learn in the process of what content is helpful on the web and how to actually format it.”