Overview
A series of lessons on website creation was designed in collaboration with Joris Smidt of DoubleMatured. The classes were designed as an introduction to the world of web design, and were taught as an after-school extra-curricular activity. The ten week course covered the entire process of creating a website, from deciding the concept, to designing their own logo's and building the website with a free online tool.
Background
The client, Stichting Dynamo, is an organisation in Amsterdam that provides extra-curricular activities for people of all ages. Every season, the organisation offers a new selection of activities, and during 2012 their offer included a 'Make your own website' course. Dynamo contacted Joris Smidt, who enlisted me to partner up in creating the course. The lessons were taught to classes of 10 students each, aged 9-12.
Process
The biggest challenge in this project was to fit a subject as complex as web-design into 10 relatively short classes, and adapting it to the specific abilities and needs of young children. We started by breaking the process down into the basic steps, and consulting with our client about the childrens' capabilities. By comparing and matching these aspects, we were able to simplify the steps to the extent that they could be understood and carried out by the children.
It was important to keep the children busy, so all steps in the process were made as hands-on as possible. Logo's were first drawn on paper in order to understand the concepts involved in basic graphic design, and later created on the computer using a simple drawing program.
The second part of the course involved the use of a free online tool to create their own basic websites using the steps they had learnt before.
My Role
My role in this project was two-fold. Using my experience in developing teaching materials and workshops, I created the plans for these classes, collaborating with Joris who used his experience of incorporating various graphic design elements. As the technical expert, I was responsible for teaching the 'site-building' aspect of the classes.