Website Portfolio
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
With the transfer from High School to College, I also transferred from working on the Aquinas High School website to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse website. I was looking for a part-time job during the school year. My friend told me that he was working on the University website over the summer and told me that I should look into the same job. I started that job two weeks before classes began. It turned out to be a great fit for me. I was able to continue working in the area that I was most familiar with, Websites.
At this job I learned about Sharepoint and Dreamweaver. These are programs that are often used to easily design websites. I haven't/don't really need these since most of the time I code sites by hand. But, one thing that I didn't know about was the Template feature of these applications. Templates allow for navigation links and design changes to be easily and quickly propagated throughout all the pages on a site. This is a huge time saver when updating static HTML pages.
We have also explored the possibilities of using server side apps such as Drupal, Wordpress, WIKIs, and a whole bunch of other applications. I have also created some flash animations, learned how to create flash videos, and use a flash streaming server, work with custom Google Maps, and learned the ease of using JavaScript frameworks such as jQuery.
URL: http://www.uwlax.edu
Providence Academy
My work with providence started with a refresh of the design. I took the strengths of the old design and created a more modern looking website. On the backend of the Providence site I used drupal to allow them to easily update content and add events for an events calendar. We are also looking into creating a section of the site only for parents of children attending Providence.
Current Site url: http://providencelacrosse.org/
Marian Catechist
This site involved a major redesign and reorganization of the content. The old site had been done a number of years ago and with the speed of changes on the web you could tell just by looking at it. I came up with a new design that was more modern looking and included some color. We also worked on finding a better way to organize the information contained in the site. This site is still based on static HTML pages, but does use a template to keep the naviagation more consistent.
Current Site url: http://mariancatechist.com/
The Cathedral of Saint Joseph the Workman
I was recommended at a meeting at the Cathedral for webpage work. When it was time to redesign the Cathedral webpage a group of three people emerged. I was one of them. Later a fourth person was added to the group.
My part in the project was to provide the CSS knowledge. I helped take the layout mockup from being just a picture to an actual webpage.
Current Site url: http://www.cathedralsjworkman.org/
Alternative Site url: http://csjw.org
Aquinas High School
The Aquinas website was where I initially learned most of what I know about websites. I started out knowing very little, but through the process of trying new things and experimentation, I have come to understand the world of web design and development very well. Thank you Mrs. Grelle for introducing me to web sites all the way back in middle school and for trusting me with the responsibility of mainting the middle school website. And thank you Mr. Boisvert for allowing me to continue with that responsibility all through high school. The Aquinas website was just a stepping stone to the many web projects that I would take on in the future. I continued to help with the site a year after graduating from high school, but it was time to pass it on. So, the website was passed on to a web marketing company, the BluGroup.
ABLE Inc.
This website began as a project for a computer class. My teacher was volunteering for the group home. They wanted a redesign of their current page. It was originally going to be a simple design. We planned on simply changing the colors to make it look better. What started out simple grew to a complete redesign with a different layout. I took their logo and made that into a header image with a slideshow. Then I used different colors from their logo and created the rest of the page. I think it turned out well and they liked the new design. The site was never moved to my design, but they have implemented some aspects of my design into a more traditional layout.
URL: http://able-inc.org
