Describe the people you intend to view the site.
Stephanie: The site was intended as a resource for teens and their parents to help them cope with and understand the issues teens face when coming of age.
Caroline: Speaking only for myself, I didn’t think anyone would see it except our class. However, I still wrote from the perspective that any teen would read it & not think it preachy or like the school project it is.
How do you intend to market this to help students?
What did you learn during the process for developing the site?
Stephanie: I learned more about site design for teens, and I really gained a better understanding and an appreciation for the topic Coming of Age. It is a topic that I am interested in devoting more time to in the future. I also noticed that there is a need for more information for teens and their parents on this topic.
Caroline: I learned that there’s a LOT of information on the web about coming of age, and that coming of age can mean anything from religious rites to everyday stuff like getting a driver’s license. And, it’s a timeless theme that is written about so much you could fill a library with just those books!
Did you find any resources that seemed at odds with your goals?
Stephanie: I came across a lot of coming of age books for adults in their early twenties and thought that they were too adult to include on this website because of some of the content. I also did not cover items about gay and lesbian teens coming out and neither did the group because I think this would have confused people about the definition for Coming of Age. Coming out is often associated with our topic but I wanted to treat both as seperate issues. Coming of age and Coming out are very different topics to me.
Caroline: I don’t think we found anything at odds with our goal, since the site is intended to provide information, not persuade someone to follow a specific path.
How are you tracking readership of your site and are you hearing from any teens?
Stephanie: I don’t have a way to track readership on the site but I can track the blogs. I have not heard from teens yet because the website is so new. But I am hoping that teens at my school and outside of the school will discover it.
Caroline: Stephanie may know more about blog readership since she set that up. We didn’t put a hit tracker or anything like that on the site. As far as I know, you’re the first to send any of us an email on the site!
Do you know of other sites created by fellow students?
Stephanie: Yes, each group in our class was assigned a different topic–here are their sites:
Family & Friends
Identity
Coping they chose suicide
Leaving Home
Sex
Caroline: The Leaving home site is really good, but the Suicide site is amazing, they did a fabulous job (makes our site look sad!).
Diane: Thanks Stephanie & Caroline for the information. I enjoy looking at the projects coming out of grad schools and hope others start sharing more of their work here. I know that being the practical person I am, I don’t expect perfection from everyone’s project and I enjoyed your site so it’s not sad. I do appreciate someone doing the initial work on finding resources and exploring approaches so together we can see what works.
Because there are limits to my posts, I wanted to continue to post additional information here. I wanted to comment about tracking. I certainly encourage you to put a tracker on your site. Professors, we are dealing with resources and research, not just projects for the sake of grades so let’s teach our new colleagues the importance of tracking and interactivity . Needs determine content and approach. I learn a great deal from looking at the key word searches that jump people to my sites. If you noticed a sudden jump in students dealing with a certain issue, that might help you provide better service.
I clicked on the “coping link and received this response, “We’re sorry but the page you requested could not be found.” Please update the link.
Thanks for noticing. Sorry for the delay. I have fixed the link to http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~sw75/INFO672/