InterLink
Size: 400 pages
My professional status: contractor at CWA New Media
Website client: The British Council
Dates: September 1996 - July 1997
Categories: Client liaison, Project manager, IA & UX, Content designer, Website designer, Front-end developer, Writing for the web, Content-loader, Webmaster, Old-school table layout, No CMS, Large sites
Brief: to develop, design, build and constantly update the website for this ground-breaking project linking 12 pairs of schools in New Zealand and the UK, who worked for 6 months on a range of 70 projects using the internet for trans-global communication - and to manage the InterLink project itself.
Kia ora Alison! Selamat Pagi! Most interested to browse and find out what you are developing with Interlink. The projects appear fascinating, constructive and stimulating for all those involved - and for spectators such as myself! Please accept from all of us at Education New Zealand in Indonesia our appreciation and congratulations to you, the team at Interlink and of course the participating schools and students for your progressive actions and initiatives toward education, learning and cross cultural understanding.
John Fitzgerald, Education New Zealand, Indonesia
My responsibilities included:
- Concept development, school selection and project management
- Design of website (look & feel, architecture, navigation, graphics, HTML and JavaScript encoding, feedback pages)
- School and teacher internet facilitation and development
- Content design, content creation and conversion of completed project work from schools (approx 60 emails per day) into web pages
- Liaison with Victoria University researcher
- Organisation and facilitation of inter-school IRC sessions and two international video conferences at the end of the project.
Wow - this project was so full-on - 60-hour weeks for six months - and I loved every minute of it. Such a challenge to create those partnerships between pairs of schools across the globe and help them to make this project a success. It was wonderful receiving their work every day and creating pages to put on the site - and their enthusiasm was awesome.
The design looks incredibly old-fashioned now, but at the time this website was a model of its kind, and a real ground-breaking project. How far we've come since then!
Awards
Best of Asia Pacific award
10 April 1997
WAMMO PostBeta award 4 stars
7 May 1997
Projects offer a comparative slice of life perspective, covering a wide spectrum of topics. Informative and innovative.
ETA 5 Star Award
31 May 1997
This is an excellent example of ETA visions in action.
Wise Owl Site of the Month award
June 1997
....in recognition of exemplary design and educational excellence.
NTID Blue Badger Award
3 June 1997
SODA award
15 August 1997
We've been watching this one develop over the last five months or so, it's been great to see the Internet medium used as a learning tool.
Bringing kids from two sides of the world together is a big ask, but having seen some of the kids' reactions that have taken part, this project has been a great success.
The site design is nice and clear with plain white backgrounds and relies on a neat cohesive look for graphics and picons to add colour. It's great to see the oft-used globe of the world used a little differently.
The folks at CWA give good web, and this site must have taken quite a lot of their resources to maintain. It contains pretty much everything you can think of that would be needed to give a sense of "being there" on the other side of the globe.
The contents of the pages make great reading, even after the event. And there are some great little gems throughout the site.
Well worth a look for young and old alike.
Education Index Top Site award
30 October 1997
...an outstanding education-related site on the Web.
Online Educator Super Site
11 November 1997
Nielsen Web Sites & Business Graphics Bronze Award
1 April 1998
Quatec Website Design Award
5 April 1998
Internet Filter Better Places Award
7 April 1998