Athens District High School Project Narrative

Project Narrative

Information About Our Web Site

School: Athens District High School
District: Leeds and Grenville
City: Athens, Ontario, Canada
Teacher: Stephen MacKinnon, computer teacher
Class: Computer Problem Solving Class
How many students worked on this project? 8.
Their ages were 16-18.
The following people helped us:

BETTY ANN HAYES, Clerk-Treasurer, Village of Athens.
Mrs. Hayes was very helpful to our project team. She attended a meeting at the school for our Web site, gave us information on the murals and helped us contact the mural artists.

DON CURRY, President of the Athens Chamber of Commerce &

PAT FLOOD, Treasurer of the Athens & District Chamber of Commerce
Mrs. Flood and Mr. Curry provided us with information on the Athens Cornfest and the Santa Claus Parade.

LOIS SCHROEDER, Athens Historian
Mrs. Schroeder is our local historian and expert on the murals.

JOHN DANCY, Former Reeve of Athens
Mr. Dancy was the reason the murals were started in Athens he helped us by telling us the story of how he got the idea for the murals.

ROBERT HARTLEY, Lions Club
Mr. Hartley is also a school board trustee. He provided us with information on the Farmersville Exhibition.
Project Contact Email: mackins@lgboe.edu.on.ca

Project Overview

We entered our project in CyberFair 96 Category #5, LOCAL AREA ATTRACTIONS (Natural and Man-made).

Description of "Our Community"

Athens is a small town of only 1000 people, in rural Eastern Ontario, Canada. Athens has a thriving tourist industry due to twelve large historical murals painted on walls throughout the village. These murals have become the focus of community pride. Because of the small size of Athens, we are a close and friendly community. In Athens, everyone knows everyone else.

Summary of Our Project

The Computer Problem Solving Class works like a computer consultant firm. One of our clients is Betty Ann Hayes, who wants to promote the village of Athens and the murals. The student team decided that a WWW site would be an excellent tool to get the message out to the world. The team chose the category Local Area Attractions for two reasons. First of all, the murals are already a propular tourist attraction, and we wanted to inform as many people as possible about the murals in the hopes of drawing more tourists to our area. The second reason that we decided on the category was that we would be able to learn more about our village and work together with the community to complete the project.

Project Elements

1. How did your activities and research for this International School CyberFair 96 Project support your required coursework and curriculum requirements?

The Athens Murals site was already a project planned for the Computer Problem Solving coursed before we were aware of the CyberFair. The Ministry of Education guideline for the course prescribes that the curriculum be implemented using Case Studies. Mr. MacKinnon selects real problems from the real world for the Case Studies. A client comes to the class with his/her problem which they then analyze and solve. This approach to learning requires students to learn and to use a wide range of their skills. They are highly motivated and they gain important experience with the real world.

2. What information tools and technologies did you use to complete your CyberFair project?

Hardware

Software Netscape 2.0 Gold Notepad Lview Graphics Workshop Corel Draw 3D Studio Map Edit

3. In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project?

We had to contact many different members of our community for our project including the Athens Chamber of Commerce, Athens Village Council and the Lions Club. We have also attempted to capture the graphic images of the murals and capture the spirit of the community in our Web site. We have built "Mail to" tags to allow users to give site feedback and to request more information about the murals and about Athens. These requests will be passed to the Village. We will be inviting (through listserv postings) other scools to create Web sites about community art. This will lead to a Web of Community Art Sites.

4. What has been the impact of your project on your community?

Our community has been very excited about our project and they have helped us very much. The team has been asked to present our site to the Town Council, Chamber of Commerce, and the rest of the community.

5. How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

Helpers from the community were instrumental in the development of our project. Without the help and information from our community, our project would not have been completed. Betty Ann at the town hall and Pat Flood from the Chamber of Commerce gave us a lot of information. Martine Pelletier, a member of our team translated all the French for us and George Papageorgio helped us with the graphics.

6. What other things have you done at your school to "Share and Unite" with your community?"

Members of our class are working on a Heroes site on injury prevention for the SmartRisk foundation, we are also creating Web sites for local businesses. We offer computer courses open to the community including an Internet course. We loan computer equipment to the elementary school. We have written software for the elementary school and produced a video to celebrate the partnership of our school and Brock Telecom.

Our International Schools CyberFair 96 Entry

Athens District High School

This page was last updated by Jeff Poole in January of 1996.