Biodiesel Website
How?
I designed and developed an eleven page website entitled "BioDiesel Betty", located at
http://kirstenmichel.com/biodiesel.html.
The idea for this site came from conversations I had with Lindsay Hassett, the guest speaker we had in class. After our class,
she and I got in touch with each other to discuss the details of my making her a video copy of her presentation in class.
I agreed to make her a copy and in the course of our conversation that day, talked a little bit about websites. I suggested
that it would be cool to put some of the knowledge she shared with us in class up on a website. She thought it was a good idea, but we
haven't been able to get back in touch since then. Regardless, I decided to create the site and show her the finished product later.
Most of the site is HTML code. HTML stands for "Hypertext Markup Language". You may find detailed information on HTML at
Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0. I learned how to develop and
design websites using this code in a 16 week program at Bay Area Video Coalition in San Francisco.
The program, Medialink 23, is a highly selective 16 week intensive, immersion style web development
training program. We produced in class multimedia projects, web portfolio, and a professionally designed
client site. The course emphasis was on creativity, adaptability, teamwork, information design, and
interface design.
The image of "BioDiesel Betty" is captured and loaded from the digital video I took that day. I recorded the footage and while playing it back captured jpegs (digital photo images) and uploaded them on the site. I also copied some images from other sites and loaded them in the website files. (the bus and the picture of the biodiesel in a jar).
I did a search on Google for "biodiesel" and resourced links that I thought were relevant. I made links to a number of these websites.
The factual information is taken from a combination of the information Lindsay shared with us in class and information
I found online.
Significance/Justification
In writing up the text for the website, I decided to aim the information at high school and early college age youth. Young people, ages 13 - 20 years old, are the "targetted audience" for this site. I chose this age group because I believe it is important young people to learn about their options before they automatically start using petroleum powered vehicles.
I emailed a friend of mine who is fourteen years old. I asked him for his opinion of the site and whether or not he thought it is interesting. I hope to get some honest feedback from him. I figure that passing it by him will give me a realistic idea as to whether or not his age group will be interested in this topic.
I also developed this website to help Lindsay Hassett get some ideas for designing and developing her website. I just talked with her on the phone and she said she liked what I had done. She just started a site, "Biofuels for Schools". When she gets back from a holiday vacation, we are going to colaborate our ideas to come up with a working site for her project.
While researching for this project, I noticed that there are VERY few websites about biodiesel that are made for young people.
All of the sites I could find were geared towards adults and a bit hard for school age youth to understand. I think it's really important for
kids to know about biodiesel.
Objective/Goal
The goals of this project were to:
1. Inform and educate young people about biodiesel and what it's all about.
2. Help Lindsay come up with some website ideas for her new business.
3. Contribute to the web by introducing a biodiesel website for kids.
4. Come up with a creative way to publish info and pictures that I got from our weekend at New College.
5. Save paper.