Professional Website
Development
TECH 272

CA272 Final Project Requirements

Why a final project?

I prefer to give students a final project rather than a final exam for a few reasons.

  1. Typically, students enjoy final projects much more than a final exam; hence they take more time, become more involved and consequently learn more creating a full website.
  2. A final projects can cover many more skills and concepts than can be included in a timed exam.
  3. Final projects are a much more enjoyable way to end the semester. Viewing your classmates' work and sharing programming tricks and design ideas tends to benefit students more than an exam and students leave the course on a positive note.
  4. Most importantly, you (the student) end up with website suitable for showing potential employers -- a start for the all important electronic portfolio!

Project Requirements

That said, here are the requirements.

  1. Create the first pages of what will become the "bones" of your growing ePortfolio. Your ePortfolio should reflect your goals, challenges, learning and experinces at Montgomery College.
  2. Final Project
    1. Create at least a five-page web sitethat describes you
      1. Your job is to "sell" yourself to potential employers and colleges using your newly aquired HTML and CSS skills.
      2. Here is the minimum listing of pages you need to include.
        1. About You (homepage) - Introduce yourself to your auidence. At this point, your audience is likely potential employers and/or universities/colleges. Who your audience is should signifcantly affect the content of your website, so always keep them in mind. Use at least one image on this page the represents you.
        2. Goals - Long and short term goals. List at least five of each and it's best to lay this out two coloumn, side-by-side. Also include at least one paragraph that discusses your goals. You may want to discuss where you are in terms of reaching your goals, challenges you have met or anticipate, or simply discuss your motives for moving down your chosen path.
        3. Courses - This is a great place to use your named anchor skills. Give a listing of at least four key courses you have taken at MC (or high school, if you haven't taken four MC courses yet). Give an overview of what the course covered and what you got out of the course in terms of knowledge and new insights. Conclude with a statement of why/how the class has added to your career skills set. What did you learn that you can use now?
        4. Off the Clock - This is your area to expand on a hobby or activity outside of work you would like to highlight. Have you volunteered for an organization lately? What non-profits have you worked with and what do you do? Do you have an interesting hobby or skill, outside of school, you would like to share. Or an award outside of school? Consider this an "Other Interests" area, but use good judgement in the topic you select. The content of this site needs to be appropriate for a potential employer.
        5. Resume - This is a good place to "dump" the code you used for your resume. You will likely need to format it bit (think page margins at least) to fit within the context of your site.
        6. Contact (optional) - create a contact form using at least four different form elements, e.g., textbox, submit/reset button, radio button, combo box, text area, etc. You may use a faux email if you like.
  3. All sites will need to adhere to the following guidelines...
    1. Your site must contain a minimum of five separate html pages.
    2. Use at least two directories/folders. One should be named images and should contain all your images. The other should be named final or final_project.
    3. Navigation
      1. needs to persist on all pages
      2. should be purely CSS/HTML based
    4. Use CSS only for your presentation layer - no deprecated tags like <font>! No using tables for page layout either! Tables can be used for image galleries and the contact form.
    5. Each site should have the following elements...
      1. at least 3 out of 5 pages need at least a two column layout.
      2. one table (as described above)
      3. a link to a named anchor
      4. your contact info and email link in the footer of each page
      5. at least five images (site wide)
      6. persistent navigation (looks the same and stays in the same place on each page)
      7. cohesive design and feel to the site
      8. correct grammar and spelling (use spell check!)
  • Use spell check! Spelling errors will discount your grade.