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Our prototype site was designed to answer the following questions:

How can we provide a collected arrangement of pages that:

1. critiques and rates educational sites?;
2. provides an opportunity for the readers to respond (and add additional sites)?

There are three levels to the organization of this project (see the chart below):

1. The Project Page is the starting point. It displays and links to the various site categories and the home page of the team member who is responsible for the design/maintainance of the corresponding site level category.
2. The Site Level represents the listing of sites according to a specified category (K-2 sites, 3-5 sites, 6-8 sites, 9-12 sites, Educational Articles). The Site Level links to the corresponding Evaluation Page(s) and/or back to the Project Page.
3. The Evaluation Page(s) provide an evaluation of the specific education site/abstract linked from the Site Level. From this level, links go back to the Site Level or back to the Project Page.

Ideally, the Site Level and Evaluation Page(s) Level would provide an electronic form in which others could contribute their sites and evaluations. Instead, we provided email links to the web designer who, at this point, would have to update the information manually.

Finally, this site provides a distributed model of website management that could be useful in a school district. The Web Manager (in our case, Buck Jones) would have the responsibility to have a common "look and feel" across the "district" pages. In our group, this was accomplished by consensus. At the next level would be the Web Designers (in our case, Paul Pasko, Kelly Terwilliger, Ellen O'Malley, and Mari Cummings), who would have the responsibility to assure consistency at the "school building(s)."

Reflection: The collaboration worked well, however, we found that as we got further along in the project it became harder to make changes. That is, once someone had a "better way" of doing something, this required everyone to make the changes in ALL the pages. At some point (the day before the project was due!) we called a halt to any design changes. This reminds me of the adage: "measure twice, cut once!" The project was a good experience for all and allowed everyone, regardless of their level of expertise, to benefit and contribute to the project. We hope you find it worthwhile!

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