Monday, February 16, 2009

Work Placement Report

This report is my reflection on some of the aspect of work I did during my placement. My placement was done at Business Promotion Technology Company called The” Web SuperFactory” based in south London. The company specializes in the World Wide Web solutions (ex. web site development, Intranet development, marketing & promotion, e-commerce). During the placement, the company gave me many opportunities to work on real commercial projects for their clients. I will be expressing about a particular project I did for the company’s client (Green Valley College) through out this report. I will start by talking about the client Green Valley College. Green Valley College is a college geared to the needs of students that their first or mother language is not English. They needed a web site that can attractive international students around the globe. The web site had to be user – friendly, easy to navigate through the site and the site translated into different languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German) for international students. They wanted their website to be top listed on popular search engines like which will make it more access to students across the world. They also wanted the web site to have dynamic forms, where the students could resign up, fill in enrollment forms, contact forms and sent their payment through the net. My company had to find solutions to the above web problems the Green Valley College had. The company gave me the opportunity to deal with their client’s (Green Valley College) web problems from the beginning to the finishing of the project with supervision from my industrial manager Appu Vora.

I started creating the site by designing the main structure of the web site. The site will be in five different languages which meant there will be five main sections in one whole site. I will be focusing only on the English sections of the site through out this report because the English section is translated into the other languages at the end of the project.

My industrial manager Appu assists me with the layout of the template for the site. We decided to use the college colors for the site (Green, yellow and white). I used the lasso tool in Photoshop to create curve shapes and odd shapes in the design of the template. I also use the blending options like in Photoshop to make the template look more attractive.

After designing the template, I used the slide tool in Photoshop to slides the template up to be imported into Dreamweaver. Sliding the template up will make the site load up quicker on the internet.

When the slide images from the template are imported into Dreamweaver software; it converts the slide images into html coding so that web browser can understand. I started added texts to the home page of the site. I then realize that the page was very long because of the text on the page, so my industrial manager advised me put the text into a simple flash scrollbar. Adding the text flash scrollbar to the page, it shorter the pages to where the users could see the whole page on the screen. The user could scroll up or down on the text flash scrollbar without moving the page. The text scrollbar also added a modern look to the website.

Green Valley College sent the company some photos to put on their site. I started by scanning the photos on my computer. I then had a discussion with my industrial manager about photos. He advised me to create a horizontal flash scrollbar, where the user can click on the forward arrow for the first photo to slide away for another photo to come into the photo frame. After creating the horizontal flash scrollbar I decided to put the photos on the “About Us” section of the site, so I made a photo gallery link on the page. My industrial manager and I decided that photo gallery would be more presentable if it opened in a minim window browser. So I put some behaviors (coding) on the Photo gallery link, so that when a user click on the photo gallery link it will load in a minim window browser

In the enrolment section of the site, I had to create four dynamic forms. The first form is for the user to put his personal details, the second form is for the user to select a course, the third form is for the user choose if they want accommodation or not, and the fourth form is for the user choose the method of payment.

The personal details form is validated, so the user had to fill in all the red spots before proceeding to the next section of the form (select a course).

The user had to select a course by clicking on the radio button next to the course they wanted.

The user selects if they want accommodation with their chosen course.

The back-end design of the enrollment forms was all done in ASP script. When the user selects a course or accommodation, it would be listed with the total sum on the bill form (same as the payment form). Then the user selects the method of payment they want to use – Money Transfer, Bank Transfer or by cheque.

In the “Contact Us” section of the site, I created a dynamic form for the user to fill in. When the user click on the submit button the form will be sent as a email to the Green Valley College, showing all the details the user has fill in. The back-end design of the contact us form was also done in ASP script. See Figure 9 for contact us form.

After creating the forms, I then added texts to the “Course” and the “Accommodation” pages. Then Green Valley College requested that the user should be able to print from each page or all the pages on the site. So I created all the texts in Microsoft word, then place buttons (label print/all print) on all the pages on the site, and then link the buttons to the appropriate Microsoft word page for that button.
I finished the front – end design of the website by linking all the main buttons on the site.

The next stage of the website was to promote it on the web by placing the site on the top list of popular search engines like which will make it more access to students across the world. Firstly, I had to optimized the Green Valley College site.

Before the placement I was not really confident with the skills I had gained from the first two years of the multimedia course, but using the skills during the work placement has fill me with confident and made me ware of all the opportunities in the multimedia world. During the placement when working on projects, everyone in the team had their part to work on, some did the designs, coding, and researching then at a particular deadline we meet as group to talk about that project; which I believe has made me a better team player and good collaborator among my colleagues. Working on the Green Valley College project has improved my multimedia skills. I have gain more experience in using Dreamweaver as website building tool. I also know how to plan a site and the structure of the site. I have attained some experience in using ASP coding to create dynamic forms on the Green Valley College project. Through the work placement I was using multimedia software packages like Adobe Photoshop 6, Flash 5 and Dreamweaver 4 frequently during the working day; which has made me more comfortable using them. I have learnt how to promote a website through search engines, which I believe is vital to know in this internet world of traffic. In general, I believe my work placement has helped me grow and reach a better focus in the multimedia Industry.

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Women in the Workplace

The view of women in work has changed so much in the past 150 years. They have gone from being strictly homemakers to working in the atrocities of the coal pits, all the way up to becoming the CEOs of major corporations. This is not to say that women no longer need to fight sexism in the workplace, for it is not a problem that has ended completely. However, conditions have biome millions of times better. What I will present in this paper is the far the quality of work for women has come, as well as the broadening views of the world on women.

Since the time when the (Polytheistic) religions of Mother Goddesses from image-based religions fell under the power (Single God) of the masculine, Male-worshipping word-based religions, women have been viewed as lesser. As such, women were called weak, unable to handle physical labor and the like. Because of this, women were given the roles of homemaker, cook, nanny, and sometimes nurse. Men and Women alike believed that women could not physically handle hard farm labor. They believed that women had not the brain power of a man, and so were not educated.

By the time the industrial revolution hit, families were so desperate for money that every member of the family went to work, including the children. Even as the women began to work, their lives still revolved around those of the men, as seen in this excerpt from Harriet Robinson's Lowell Mill Girls:

Women were not allowed any maternity leave if they became pregnant. This occurred even in the coal mines where grueling labor forced them to crawl on their hands and knees with a belt about their waist and a chain between their legs. This chain was attached to a load of heavy coal, and these women had to drag the coal through sometimes 3 miles of tunnel.

The coal mines were a grueling place of work for members of either sex. Hours were long, workers often had 12 hour shifts, going from six in the morning to six at night, They were given an hour for dinner and some bread and butter for supper. There were no drinks for workers, despite hot conditions.

The temperatures were so warm that many workers were at least topless (including women); some wore only flannel loincloths or were completely naked. With all this nudity, intercourse, sometimes rape, was a common occurrence. The children grew up without an education and as a result could not read or write. Shafts often became flooded, and many workers drowned.
For this grueling, harsh, and unsafe labor, the men were paid six shillings a week. The women were paid half that amount at 3 shillings, the equivalent of 27 cents, a week! Of course, back then, costs were lower, but still the women were paid half as much as the men, despite the fact that they often had a family to support just as well as the men did.

Fashion at this time literally caged them in. An image of women as weak and fluttery was created because women would often faint from their corsets being tied too tight, causing them to have difficulty breathing. A popular colectible item at this time were collections under glass jars. They were pretty to look at, but they I not do good, they only took up space.

A person of today may look back on this and wonder why the working class women were not looked upon as strong and independent. The reason why is that these women were uneducated, had coarse language, and were often very filthy. They were dirty, scraggly, and very ugly. Why would these women under glass jars who were taught to believe that beauty and submission were the best qualities in a woman?

Still, however, a job is out of the question. They submit to their husbands, they care for their kids. The main workforce is swept off to war. There are huge holes in the workforce, too many to be filled by the remaining men, and by now child labor laws are being passed. The government needed a way to keep their economy afloat, and so they devised a plan.

She encouraged women nationwide to get a job to help the boys on the front. Women began working as welders, riveters, engineers, reporters, nurses...any job that needed filling. With a single rivet, Rosie began the movement for true women’s' independence. Before the war, American women believed in the need to be married and care for a family. Through work, they found a talent, strength, an ability to be strong without a husband. In Rosie women began to see the first American Strong Woman: the independent woman. Rosie could deal with anything on her own, but because she loved her man, she worked for him while he fought on the front.

And so, the US Government found a way to keep their economy afloat. What they didn't know was just what kind of can of worms they had opened.

After the war, women went back to their home lives. Some happily, some....well...they liked work. So women began to get jobs, although at first women could only get small jobs. By and by though, working women grew in strength and number. The 1960's came around, and the young women in their 20's saw that they really could be independent, that thy really didn't need to be married. So in the 70's and 80', women rushed to the workplace, and began to work their way up the ladder.

Today, women are common in any workplace. In these times, many people believe that a woman can do just as much as a man can. Unfortunately, however, there are still those people who believe that the place for a woman is in the kitchen, not at a desk doing honorable work, making money for themselves, and many not having a family or a husband to support.

Unfortunately, there is still a large amount of pressure put on working women. Women are often not paid as much as men, the average salaries for men and women are thousands of dollars apart. Women still have to deal with Sexual harassment in the workplace, although it is not nearly as bad as the rape that many coal mining women of the industrial revolution had to go through.
There is one issue, though, that still plagues or culture. The idea of marriage. It is pressed onto young girls as the perfect relationship, making them believe that you have to be married to be happy. This kills off many forms of independence. Marriage is such a large commitment that a couple would be better off just dating than married, especially the woman. Many a woman has quit her job just because her husband did not want her to continue working.

All in all, however, we have come long way. Women have grown even in politics, and I believe we will soon have a female president. When this step takes place, I think that Women will have an even stronger presence in the workplace, as well as be more independent. The education of history gives women the roots they need to grow wings, just as the bible rooted Christianity.

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