Education Portal Project Website - Draft Version

[Aditya Teja Josyula]

Hello Everyone!

 

I've put together a 'beta' version of the Asha Purdue Education Portal website. You can visit it at:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/ashapurdueeduportal/

 

Please consider this DRAFT version of the website - feel free to start testing the LinkShare feature, but know that those links may be removed later when we release the final version of the website. For now, let's continue adding links to the spreadsheet - like we did last weekend.

 

However, I do need your suggestions/comments/feedback on the website. We want to make sure the website is both a communication outlet and a project management/collaborative tool.

 

Some Features/Sections (Planned/Implemented)

 

Note: Even if it says implemented - please know that I'm very open to changes based on your suggestions and feedback. So feel free to respond to this email with your thoughts.

1. LinkShare - Setup as a form - responses are immediately reflected on the Demand Table and Project Tracking features (explanations below). This feature can only be used by people registered with us AND who have a Google account. I know the Google account rule seems a bit pesky - but that's one of the limitations of using Google sites. Workarounds anyone? 
2. Registration - Allows volunteers to submit a registration request. It's not automatic - one of us will manually be looking at these requests and adding them to the right google group. This control mechanism allows us to control the content and avoid hack attacks (hepefully!)
3. Demand Table - This is available on the 'LinkShare' page - tells us exactly where the most 'demand' is. We can have quite a discussion on the logic behind the demand. For now - our goal is to get atleast one video for each grade/topic. Having more than one video for one topic is good - but not the focus of the day. So the scoring logic reflects that currently.
4. Embedded Videos/Educator Navigation - Haven't really started work on this yet. But this is where the educators will be able to put in the search parameters they want and get to the best rated/most relevant video/educational content.
5. Guides - We would need to get some guidelines/instructions for volunteers/educators using our site.
• How to search for and share 'good' educational content links
• How to make/enhance 'good' educational content
6. Informational Pages
• About the project - what we're doing / how we're doing it
• Talk about the need - why we're doing it
7. Articles/Columns
• Team Columns - Weekly/Monthly Columns from team members on pertinent topics (Thanks Nikita for helping us get started with your very own column!)
• Guest Columns - Articles from gues columnists/advisors etc.
8. File Sharing - Transparency is the order of the day - we should make sure most of our past presentations/files are shared. We should be following a non-profit model. Thoughts are welcome.
9. Partner Corner - A section that proudly displays the volunteer organizations we're working with / any feedback/encouraging comments from them etc.
10. Photo Gallery (maybe?) - what do you guys think?
11. Project Tracking - the chart on the first page is an example of this - a mechanism that tells us where we are with respect to our most immediate goals. The current goal is to get atleast one video for each Grade/Topic - hence this type of visualiztion. We can do a lot more - keep the suggestions coming please!
12. Surveys and Survey results - This section would contain surveys - team/guest surveys - surveys we could host on the website itself. We can do a lot here.

By the way - I am looking for logo/name ideas - calling all creatively inclined folks to share with the team!

 

Now that a draft website has been created, I'll start working with the web team and we will improve further. Looking forward to your thoughts and suggestions!

 

Regards

~Aditya