I worked with web developer Nigel Parry and designer Ken Harper (Iron Clad Images) over the last spring and summer to develop a new look and better navigation flow for the site as well as a number of tools designed to increase the usability and accessability of the site. The result is years beyond the previous one. We moved off of Drupal and over to Interactive Tools’ Article Manager 2.

The Minibar is a popular regular meetup in Shoreditch for internet professionals to network and swap ideas and offers monthly face time to people more prone to staring at screens. If you’ve got a marketable idea this is the place to find people with the skills to make it possible, with upwards of around 150 web developers, programmers, designers, etc., from around the city attending at a single go.

The other is the Google London Open Source Jam.These are theme-driven nights at Google’s London HQ at Belgrave House. Marvel at the working environment that keeps people in the office 12 hours or more a day, the open kitchen area and hear ideas that could well be the future of open source and possibly the web itself.

To me this one is pure brain candy. I dig the 7-minute open-to-all presentation period where people trot out what they’re working on in rapid-fire sessions and then face an onslought of suggestsions, questions and critiques in a sort of Dragons Den for smart people.

Cannot say that a good amount isn’t flying well over my php/mysql head at times, but the end result is a clear idea of what’s out there and what’s to come in the coming years.

Website builder sought for Great Teachers Remembered

Overview

Teacher Support Network seeks a builder for a website to be located at greatteachers.org.uk, which will be a companion to its main site at teachersupport.info. Design and content have already been assembled and we are looking for a quick, independent and solid website builder to bring it online on deadline and to design specification.

About us

Teacher Support Network consists of a group of independent charities and a social enterprise in the United Kingdom that provide practical and emotional support to staff in the education sector and their families. You can find out more about us at teachersupport.info.

Background

Great teachers remembered is a web based product to help remember and celebrate the lives and careers of teachers who have died. The site allows colleagues, friends and relatives to post a tribute to remember a great teacher. Others that knew the teacher can also visit the site and add messages and photos. This will serve as a fundraising tool as a donation is required to post a tribute or to add a comment or photograph. The site also is intended to be opportunity to raise awareness of Teacher Support Network and information on the charity will be included in the site. We also believe that the site is important to furthering Teacher Support Network’s aim in promoting the importance of teachers in society.

Our needs

You should be proficient in php, java, creating clean, clear css and be familiar with methods of semantic markup and MySQL database structure. You should have experience in creating sites with heavy interactivity and user-generated content, creating custom forms and integrating secure payment methods that will operate through WordPay (www.worldpay.com). The site should contain RSS feeds, search engine-friendly tagging

Your build must be able to run on either Windows or Linux servers. You should be familiar with W3C Web Standards and comfortable in creating websites that comply fully with Web Standards requirements as well as UK’s disability requirements. Proprietary systems will be considered, but you must work within the scope of the budget. Open source solutions are encouraged.

In your RFP (request for Proposal), please include:

1. Information about your company or yourself (if an individual)

2. Examples of websites you’ve built that are still in use today (those that include interaction similar to this project’s are preferred)

3. References and testimonials

4. A list of tools you most often use to build: platforms, CMS systems, code language, etc. and what you envision using to build this site.

5. An outline of your working process.

6. Copy of personal resume or company literature

7. A copy of your work guarantee

Candidates who submit these materials will receive a pdf of the site design. Please contact andrew.lyons@teachersupport.info with your application packet. PDF attachments preferred.

This is a collaborative project. Partners required. Share the work and the rewards equally. Needed:

• Programmer
• Social Networks application specialist
• Graphic designer
• Marketing Director

Contact me through this form, using “The Top 5ive Project” as the subject. Let me know what you’ve worked on in the past and give me a link to it if it’s active somewhere online. If you look to be a good match, I’ll send you the access key for this background document.

Keeping with the colors and motifs that now gives RCF its brand was a challenge, and two complete sites were built from scratch. I’m hoping to actually give it an upgrade and another build later this year, similar to what’s there, but based on a Wordpress theme I’ve currently got under construction, that will turn it into yet still more of a news site. Over at the blog I detailed the some of the work involved. Here, I’m just posting both theme designs, the one that didn’t make it (image at right) and the one that did.

Being a part of this project has given me a far better look at and greater appreciation of educators here and in the U.S., and a lot more empathy for those teachers who put up with me from primary school on.

We’re switching off of Drupal to a customised, independent cms, integrating the site with the RightNow crm and giving it an all-together different look and architecture. Transitioning from the current brochure-site look to something that approaches an actual online service-oriented tool has been a great case study in site usability dos and don’ts which I hope to illustrate here once the project is complete.

From the website:

“Practitioners from war zones who participate in our program become prepared to treat, and to train other practitioners to treat, trauma survivors in their home countries. We thereby seek to leverage our resources by creating a snowball effect that greatly increases the number of practitioners worldwide that fight torture.”

Handling the web technology for this group and consulting on tech issues with the many great people associated with it puts me pretty far off from the experiences that others on the advisory board have, as I sit safely behind a computer screen here in London. Other advisory board members, many of them practicioners themselves, are working in medical facilities, refugee camps and trauma treatment centers in Zimbabwe, the occupied Palestinian territories, Sri Lanka, Uganda and other places where people face first hand the human capacity for brutality and also for assistance in healing.

I created this website to accomplish a couple of things: To be a place to maintain an updated resumé and advertise projects in need of people out there with specialized skills.

Over the course of the next few days I’m planning to populate this site projects past, present and future, turn it into a portal for collaborative opportunities.

Contact me by clicking here.