Rainbow Club - 2015
Teacher: Ms. Kerr
Created by Tony Todorova
For Rainbow Club
Technology Used: Tumblr, Google Docs, Afterlight (Photo Editing App), & Photoshop
Description of Project:
Rainbow club has wanted to open up a site where students of Mackenzie can gather resources on gender, sexuality, and sexual health. Ms. Kerr, Mahfam (my co-president) and I have been talking about opening up a site for 2 years. Ms. Kerr was gracious enough to give me free reign in terms of how everything was organized on the website. As a collective, we knew that we wanted resources that were organized and we wanted a place where people could direct questions to us personally.
To bring our vision into existence, we decided that Tumblr would be our best option. Tumblr was the best choice for Rainbow club because it allows the user to enable an ask box option where people who visit the website can ask questions and have them answered by us personally. Additionally, many Rainbow club members are familiar with Tumblr because they use it personally. This would mean that we have a large group of people who would be able to navigate and update the website as the year progresses. We feel that Tumblr is a very good way to reach out to high school students (especially the student of Mackenzie) since the demographic present on Tumblr is mostly young adults.
Tumblr made a prime choice because of the demographic it caters too as well as catering to all the functional aspects we needed in a website.
The new Rainbow site can be accessed here.
A tour of the Rainbow website can be found here.
Created by Tony Todorova
For Rainbow Club
Technology Used: Tumblr, Google Docs, Afterlight (Photo Editing App), & Photoshop
Description of Project:
Rainbow club has wanted to open up a site where students of Mackenzie can gather resources on gender, sexuality, and sexual health. Ms. Kerr, Mahfam (my co-president) and I have been talking about opening up a site for 2 years. Ms. Kerr was gracious enough to give me free reign in terms of how everything was organized on the website. As a collective, we knew that we wanted resources that were organized and we wanted a place where people could direct questions to us personally.
To bring our vision into existence, we decided that Tumblr would be our best option. Tumblr was the best choice for Rainbow club because it allows the user to enable an ask box option where people who visit the website can ask questions and have them answered by us personally. Additionally, many Rainbow club members are familiar with Tumblr because they use it personally. This would mean that we have a large group of people who would be able to navigate and update the website as the year progresses. We feel that Tumblr is a very good way to reach out to high school students (especially the student of Mackenzie) since the demographic present on Tumblr is mostly young adults.
Tumblr made a prime choice because of the demographic it caters too as well as catering to all the functional aspects we needed in a website.
The new Rainbow site can be accessed here.
A tour of the Rainbow website can be found here.
The main objective throughout this project was to create a simple, easy-to-navigate website that was functional and aesthetically pleasing.
As previously mentioned, Ms.Kerr gave me free reign in terms of the website aesthetic. What I found the most challenging was narrowing down all of my options, since I had anything and everything to choose from. This was made easier by the fact that a lot of the website themes I found that were aesthetically pleasing didn’t allow me to create separate pages (such as the about page on the current site). When I found our current Tumblr theme, it filled all of the criteria that we needed in a website: it was elegant and simple, and allowed me to create custom pages. The theme is very neutral in terms of layout. There is a very simple header image that is a purple gradient that was made in Photoshop, and all the links can be found in the centre of the header image. This way all the links are visible, making the website easier to navigate.
The first link present is the About page where people can learn more about Rainbow club and it’s initiatives. The second link is the introductions page where people can come to know some of the members of Rainbow club. This page will be changed every so often to let people meet some other Rainbow club members.
As previously mentioned, Ms.Kerr gave me free reign in terms of the website aesthetic. What I found the most challenging was narrowing down all of my options, since I had anything and everything to choose from. This was made easier by the fact that a lot of the website themes I found that were aesthetically pleasing didn’t allow me to create separate pages (such as the about page on the current site). When I found our current Tumblr theme, it filled all of the criteria that we needed in a website: it was elegant and simple, and allowed me to create custom pages. The theme is very neutral in terms of layout. There is a very simple header image that is a purple gradient that was made in Photoshop, and all the links can be found in the centre of the header image. This way all the links are visible, making the website easier to navigate.
The first link present is the About page where people can learn more about Rainbow club and it’s initiatives. The second link is the introductions page where people can come to know some of the members of Rainbow club. This page will be changed every so often to let people meet some other Rainbow club members.
Most importantly, we have the resource page. Here students can filter out all of the unnecessary posts and look at the tag that interests them. They tags are separated out by gender and sexuality. Mahfam and I also discussed the importance of having resources for allies (people who do not fall within the LGBTQ+ umbrella but support LGBTQ+ rights) so I’ve included that tag as well.
Another very important resource on the website is the ask box. As previously stated, the ask box allows people to ask questions anonymously to us personally. This function was very important to all of us because students who do not feel comfortable coming into a meeting would perhaps feel more comfortable to be anonymous online. This way we can reach out and provide resources to even more students.
Possible uses in other classes/subject areas:
Tumblr is a blogging platform where users can reblog something that another account has personally posted and can create their own posts that other users can reblog from them. Posts that are reblogged onto an account to form a feed that is visible to anyone who follows that particular blog. Even though Tumblr is not designed for the purpose of education, it is very educational. Many resources can be found on Tumblr that are school related! In the search bar, you can search a certain tag and be able to see every single posts on Tumblr with that particular tag.
If a teacher were to use Tumblr, it would best be used for solely for enrichment purposes. For example, a content heavy course typically needs a lot of resources in order to give student’s holistic understanding of the topic. So history would be an example of one subject that might find a site like Tumblr useful. The teacher could follow many history blogs in order to be able to reblog and tag whatever posts they see fit. Tumblr allows teachers to organize videos and articles, but it doesn’t allow them to grade assignments like Google Classroom or posts PowerPoints like on Google Sites. Much of the functionality of a typical teacher website is lost through Tumblr.
That being said, I do think Tumblr is very beneficial for clubs. Many of Mackenzie’s students use Tumblr leisurely and this would allow clubs to have a greater outreach. Clubs like Rainbow club benefit immensely from having an online space that is available to the student body 24/7.
Possible uses in other classes/subject areas:
Tumblr is a blogging platform where users can reblog something that another account has personally posted and can create their own posts that other users can reblog from them. Posts that are reblogged onto an account to form a feed that is visible to anyone who follows that particular blog. Even though Tumblr is not designed for the purpose of education, it is very educational. Many resources can be found on Tumblr that are school related! In the search bar, you can search a certain tag and be able to see every single posts on Tumblr with that particular tag.
If a teacher were to use Tumblr, it would best be used for solely for enrichment purposes. For example, a content heavy course typically needs a lot of resources in order to give student’s holistic understanding of the topic. So history would be an example of one subject that might find a site like Tumblr useful. The teacher could follow many history blogs in order to be able to reblog and tag whatever posts they see fit. Tumblr allows teachers to organize videos and articles, but it doesn’t allow them to grade assignments like Google Classroom or posts PowerPoints like on Google Sites. Much of the functionality of a typical teacher website is lost through Tumblr.
That being said, I do think Tumblr is very beneficial for clubs. Many of Mackenzie’s students use Tumblr leisurely and this would allow clubs to have a greater outreach. Clubs like Rainbow club benefit immensely from having an online space that is available to the student body 24/7.
rainbowcheatsheet.pdf | |
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