Final Reflection

Overall I am happy with my project. Before starting my project I had never used or really even knew what a learning management system was. I had used Canvas and Blackboard as a student but never considered using one as a teacher before. I really enjoyed learning about different learning management systems and diving into Teachable and Canvas and discovering their capabilities. Beyond the LMS, I really like how my WordPress site turned out. It has a fully functioning shopping cart and it's mobile friendly. Creating the media queries drove me crazy though! I learned that waiting for my cache to clear, even after forcing it to clear, was enough to make me want to scream. Maybe there's something about the cache clearing that I don't know and need to learn.
My biggest challenge with the project wasn't anything to do with the project at all. I knew I could learn whatever I needed to learn to complete my project, but it was my family life that was hard. Right before starting the semester we moved from the West to the South. Not only was this a culture change, but we moved away from family yet again. However, this time was the first time being away with a baby. My husband started medical residency and has worked extremely long hours. Finding time to work without a child has been hard, especially for anything live such as the advising sessions.
The biggest takeaway from my project is very interesting to me. It was during my last advising session with Jen. I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of I have a talent for design and/or instructional design. This comment was what helped me decide what I want to do with this degree. Due to my husband's job, I want to work at home so I can be home with my kids. I was going to start a web design company, but this comment made me realize I should niche my business to online course creators and help them get their course online and help design the course and the site. This collides my education background with my new degree and I love it! I put what I was doing on social media and I've had a lot of people interested in becoming a client. This is a strange takeaway from the project, but also it's changed the course of what I thought I was going to do and it fits me much better. Jen, if you're reading this, thank you for your comments and your wisdom. You've helped guide me in more ways than just my capstone project.
As for the project, I really am excited about the curriculum and want to finish this first unit before graduation in May. I need to step away from it for a few weeks though...I really am so sick of looking at it LOL. I'll pick it up in the new year and finish it out. Hopefully, by the time the capstone fair rolls around I can have it finished and have it being taught in a few classrooms.

Another Update

Week 1 is complete! I've been working on building the course on Teachable and Canvas. You can see the Teachable course here. I don't like how the only thing each lesson has is a PowerPoint download. I'm working on different ways to present then course that would be more conducive to a site like Teachable. I'm also working on using my own domain instead of .teachable.com. I've got a subdomain setup, but I haven't been able to link it correctly to my teachable school.
As for Canvas, I've got the modules and lessons laid out. I've got to upload the files now. Again, I'd like to make them more interactive.
As far as my WordPress website goes, I'm in the middle of creating a child theme for the Genesis framework. It's coming along, but the design needs a lot of work at this point. It's currently only on my localhost. 

Week 6 Update

This week has gone pretty well. I've wrapped up week 1 of the curriculum. There are a few final touches I'll be adding, but I'm feeling good about the progress and feel that it's coming together well. I am a bit nervous about time. I'm going to really have to speed up creating week 2. I've really taken a lot of time on week 1 though because I want the curriculum to be done well and something that teachers will really use. However, I also want enough time to create my website and make it good. So, my struggle right now is knowing how much time to prepare for creating the website. I'm going to make a new timeline with the new goals that Jen and I discussed in our first meeting to help with time management.

Week 5 Update

Week 1 of the curriculum is in the final stages of being complete. This has taken me a lot longer than I realized it would. I really want the curriculum to be fun and engaging for the students and easy to facilitate for teachers, therefore it's taken a lot of thought on activities and lesson set up. I will be finished with Week 1 this week and contacting teachers to see if they'll test out the week with their classes and give me feedback. I'll also be starting week 2 this week and work some on the website. It's going slow, but I feel like I'll be able to complete the project in time.

Week 4 Update

This week I've focused a lot on building the WP theme for my project. I've made it through a lot of the course on Lynda.com, but I'm still not through it yet.
I've also been working on the first week of curriculum still. This has been slow going because I keep changing things up and questioning myself on what would be fun for students, but still teaching the code in a relevant way. It's getting there though. I'm making it a goal to have the first week done this week so I can get some user testing done on it.
I also built a very basic website to show what students will be learning in the course. I build it on CodePen.io so students can see an exact replica of the project.

Week 3 Update

This week I worked on the first week of the curriculum. It's coming together, but still not done. I decided to step away from it for the last half of the week since I was starting to lose the creativity it takes to come up with activities and lesson ideas. For the second half of the week, I started working on creating a custom theme for my website. I started on the Lynda.com course-WordPress: Building Themes from Scratch Using Underscores . I spent most of my time getting gulp, npm, and node.js running on my computer. When I finally had it all set up with browser sync working, my sass wasn't compiling. So, I feel like most of my time this week I've wasted trying to get that to work. After spending SO. MANY. HOURS. on trying to get it up and running, I remembered using a compiler in Jen's DGMD E-27.  So, I'm going to try to use the Scout compiler we used in that class. Hopefully, this week will be MUCH more productive than this last week.

Week 2 Update

Things are going a lot slower than I had originally planned. Coming into this semester, I already had 2 days of curriculum done and up to day 10 outlined with teaching objectives and possible activities. I decided to change how the course was going to work for the students and not have them use Sublime Text but use CodePen.io instead. Well, because of this I've had to completely redo day 1 and I scrapped day 2 all together.  I started a new day 2 and realized there were things that would need to be taught in the curriculum before the day 2 I was creating. Now I've got day 1 complete and most of what will be day 3 complete.

I started to created screencast videos with me speaking, which I wasn't initially planning on using. These videos are taking a long time. I've had to re-record most of them a few times. It's coming along though and I think the integration of these videos will make the curriculum much more user-friendly. 

I'd really like to get the first week of curriculum complete with printable activities, pictures, and the lesson plans by next week. After working this week, this seems quite overwhelming. However, I want to get it done so I can send it out to a few teachers to try in their classrooms and I can get feedback and adjust. 

Capstone Summer Work

This summer I focused on reaching milestone 1 for my project which was
"the project will be a functioning WordPress site on my localhost. LearnDash will be installed along with all of the plugins needed for LearnDash. I will also have learned the layout of LearnDash and add courses, lessons, videos, etc."  To start on milestone 1, researched a few different learning management systems to house the curriculum I'll be writing.  After researching different learning management systems I decided to focus most of my attention on learning the LMS LearnDash. I started learning about how to create courses and upload them to WordPress. I've been working on this on my localhost. I don't have anything online yet.
One of my other learning goals was to learn SEO so I could get the curriculum noticed by search engines and teachers would be able to find it. I actually have learned a lot about SEO, through Lynda.com course, podcasts and blogs from experts. After speaking with Jen and Ed last night though about changes I'll probably be making in my goals for the capstone, I'm not sure if any of this will actually be helpful in my project.
Looking at my work plan and milestones for my project I've almost completed all of Task 1 this summer. I just need to create the home, about, and blog pages for the curriculum on my WordPress site.

Capstone Milestones and Timeline

Milestone 1	WordPress Site Setup with LearnDash
	At this milestone, the project will be a functioning WordPress site on my localhost. LearnDash will be installed along with all of the plugins needed for LearnDash. I will also have learned the layout of LearnDash and add courses, lessons, videos, etc.
Milestone 2	20 Days of Curriculum Laid Out with Specific Learning Goals and Sample Website Built
	For the proposal, I have laid out what topic will be taught each week. At this milestone, it will be broken down even further to what specific skill will be taught each day. This will be laid out in a Google Doc. The purpose of this step is to work through what each day of the curriculum will look like. I’ll be creating a sample website (student final project) so as to create the curriculum using a backward design approach.
Milestone 3	Days 1-5 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 5 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. These activities will focus on the HTML skeleton and file management.
Milestone 4	Days 6-10 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 10 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. During these lessons, the instruction will focus on basic HTML tags and the students will start adding tags to their webpage.
Milestone 5	Days 11-15 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 15 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. These activities will focus on the basics of CSS.
Milestone 6	Days 16-20 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 20 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. With the completion of this milestone, all of the curricula will be written.
Milestone 7	WooCommerce Setup with Courses
	At the completion of this milestone, all of the courses will be on the site and the site will be running on my localhost. There will be a sample course for free and the full course will be for sale on the site.
Milestone 8	Non-Curriculum Pages Built and Content Added with SEO
	When this milestone is finished all of the pages on the website will work. These pages will include a home page, about the project page, curriculum page, and a blog. At least one blog post will be added at this point. The use of the Yoast plugin will be added here along with SEO strategies.
Milestone 9	Custom Theme Built
	At this point, the site will be nearly complete. All of the plugins will be working, the curriculum will be on the site, and now the custom theme will be complete. The site will have a nice layout that has a custom logo and branding.
Milestone 10	Website Live Online
	With the completion of this milestone, the site will be live online and be working properly.

The Proposal

1.0 Project Scope

1.1 Tentative Project Title

Code School Curriculum

1.2. Project Goal

The goal of the capstone project is to make teaching students front-end web development fun
and interactive in a classroom setting. The project will provide a curriculum designed
specifically for teachers from all levels of coding experience. The curriculum will be easy to use
for teachers and students alike, as it will be housed in a Learning Management System on a
WordPress website.

Currently, the state of the art that exists today are websites which teachers may guide students
to use, however many of these websites aren’t set up for a classroom environment. The goal of
this project exceeds the state of the art by making it easy and accessible for teachers to teach
coding. The project incorporates the foundation of HTML and CSS, but does it in a way that
students are writing the code and building real-world projects.

From my research, in a lot of the other solutions that exist today students aren’t actually writing
the code, but building with blocks or other like objects. Through this curriculum the students will
actually be learning how to code. By the end of the proposed twenty-day unit students will be

Sketch of Student Final Project and Skills Needed

After interviewing a few students in the seventh and eighth grades, I found that their biggest
frustrations with their experiences of coding in the classroom were it’s boring to sit and work
on your own, lack of support/knowledge from the teacher, and it takes so long to actually start
learning how to code. Using this information, this curriculum will be created so that students
are working with their peers and they’ll be able to write code on the first day of class.

Storyboard Sketch of a Week as Student

To take the project even further above other solutions, this curriculum will be written to
encompass proven teaching strategies and make the curriculum hands-on and accessible to
both teacher and students. Some of the teaching strategies used throughout the curriculum
will include, but not limited to, cooperative learning, inquiry-based activities, metacognitive
strategies, classroom discussions, and summative and formative assessments. Learning this
curriculum, students will have the opportunity to work with actual code through coding
challenges with teams, friendly competition among their peers, and actually using what they’ve
learned in a real-world project.

Example of a hands-on file management activity from week 1 of the curriculum

The teacher’s role in this curriculum will be one of a facilitator and not the one who knows
everything. Included in the curriculum will be a teacher’s guide and information with each

lesson to help the teachers understand what the students are learning and the teachers will

be able to learn along with the lessons.

Storyboard Sketch of a Week as the Teacher

1.3. Learning Goals

During my coursework, I took DGMD E-25 where I learned how to build a custom theme for
WordPress. Through this project, I am planning on taking the skills I learned in DGMD E-25
and building upon them. I want to become proficient in WordPress theming and creating more
features such as a theme customizer.

Creating this project will be my first time working with an LMS. Learning how to use the plugin,
creating content on it, and building out the pages are all things I am looking forward to. Along
with learning the LMS is learning how to use plugin add-ons. I’ll be using the BadgeOS add-on
and learning how an add-on works with a plugin.

Another skill I  am eager to learn in the project is search engine optimization. I’ll be taking a
Lynda.com course on SEO which includes learning about the Yoast plugin that is part of the
proposed project.

In addition to these skills, I will also be learning and using WooCommerce. I’ve chosen three
Lynda.com courses to help me learn about this technology and learn how to custom theme the
plugin to match my products branding.

I specifically chose the technologies and skills that I’m planning on learning I to help me gain
the skills that I’ll need to launch a WordPress site business. I believe that through the courses
I’ve taken at Harvard Extension School and through this project I’ll be markedly prepared to
have a successful business and to continue this project in the way that I have planned.

1.4. Target Audience

The target audience for the project is middle grade (6-8) teachers and students. The audience
will incorporate both male and female students from all income levels and ethnic groups. The
target audience will preside in a school (public, private, charter) where the students have
access to computers. The computers can be in a lab, a classroom set of laptops, etc. These
students are students who want to learn to build a website and have the desire to learn how to
style a website. These are students who are frustrated with the lack of coding access and are
excited to have a class/teacher who will teach them how to code.

The teachers are those that have a desire to teach students how to code. These teachers can
see the benefits of teaching students how to build a webpage. They know that the skills being
taught can be used in all curriculum areas. For example, students can create basic websites
in science to present an experiment instead of a poster board. The teachers are also aware
of how beneficial these skills can be for students to attain jobs after graduation or help students
find a course of study for college. These teachers are willing to take the time necessary to
learn with their students and are willing to accept that they won’t know everything, but can stil
l be successful at teaching the curriculum. In an interview with Rick Nielsen, Superintendent
of Nebo School District in Spanish Fork, Utah, he stated “I don’t believe that every teacher
teaching this curriculum will be a professional coder. The teacher will act more as a facilitator
for learning rather than a sage on the stage.” This statement accurately describes the target
teachers for this curriculum.

The curriculum will be tested by a small sample of the target audience. This small sample will
be recruited from a group of teachers I previously taught with, teachers at my child’s school,
and friends of mine that are teachers. My goal is to get at least two teachers who are willing
to teach the first week of curriculum to their class and provide feedback themselves and also
from their students.

1.5. Elevator Pitch

The project is a front-end web development curriculum designed for teachers and students in
the middle grades. The curriculum is written to be engaging in a classroom setting where
students work together on challenges, games, and leveling up. The curriculum is written so
that any teacher, with any level of coding experience, can teach coding with success and have
their students building websites within the first four weeks of the course.

1.6. Metrics

Level 1: The curriculum is well written and housed on a learning management system. The
curriculum is made up of a compilation of curated activities, videos, coding challenges, etc
from outside sources as well as some of the aspects being written by me. The level one
product lacks the gamification aspect and a custom WordPress theme.

Level 2: This level includes all of the aspects of the level one, but it will also include gamification
in the curriculum. Gamification will bring a level of excitement and motivation to the students
and the classroom. This level will also include a custom theme but will lack components such
as sidebars, and themed plugins.

Level 3: This level includes all of the aspects of level 2, but will also include a complete custom
WordPress theme with a nice logo and the same branding throughout the site. The level three
project will also include a well-written teacher’s guide to accompany the curriculum. The level
three curriculum will reach all six facets of learning described in section four of this proposal.

1.7. Life of the project beyond capstone

After the completion of this capstone project, I will continue to make new units of curriculum
and add them to the list of courses on the website being built. My goal is to continue making
courses that will lead up into the high school years. This curriculum would build upon the skills
students will learn through this project by getting more in-depth with HTML and CSS, going
into JavaScript and jQuery, as well as content management systems.  My goal would be to
have enough curriculum that a school district could buy all of the courses and provide coding
classes that could get students a job right out of high school or have enough knowledge to
enter into a computer science degree. In the interview with Superintendent Nielsen, he said:
“I LOVE the idea of a prescriptive and defined pathway in our Advanced Learning Center.
You walk out of here in 12th grade you could almost walk out of here and into the job force.”
This is my hope for the project.

Beyond creating curriculum and selling it, the skills that I will learn by doing this project will help
me to launch a business. The business I hope to launch will be a business that provides
WordPress websites with custom themes for women entrepreneurs, teachers, and small
businesses.

2. Competitor review

Code.org

Code.org is a website with the goal to make computer science more accessible to all students
. Every year it organizes Hour of Code which is a worldwide effort to get students around the
world to code for one hour on the day the Hour of Code is hosted.

The goal of code.org is very similar to the goal of the project being proposed.

This website has a curriculum for students from the primary grades through high school.
The lessons include video and an embedded text editor with coding activities. The lessons
also include printable worksheets which make code.org more conducive to a classroom setting
than some of the other like sites. Although the site has lesson plans and activities, the build of
the site doesn’t feel as though it was built with a classroom of students and a teacher in mind.

Creative Computing

Creative Computing is a 154-page guide consisting of well-written lesson plans for using
Scratch. The guide is laid out into 7 different units. These units start with the very basic and
building the background of the code.  The lesson plans include activities, resources which
include links to videos, printables, etc. One of the aspects of the lesson plan that makes them
helpful for teachers, especially those who don’t have a lot of experience with code, is how to
review student work.

The lesson plans are written with a classroom in mind. The lessons include group activities,
hands-on classroom activities, and student reflections. Each lesson also has background
information for the teacher. This guide is very similar to the project being proposed, but the
proposed project will all be online and focus on HTML and CSS instead of Scratch.

CodePen.io

CodePen.io is an online text editor. Using CodePen.io in the proposed project is an easy way
for students, teachers, and schools to have access to a text editor without having to download
one on all of the students' computers. This can be challenging for teachers as some school
districts block teachers from downloading programs from the internet, and they have to wait
for the district IT personnel to add the program to student computers. On CodePen users can
create a new project and when they do, the setup looks exactly like what an offline, downloaded
text editor looks like. Users can also share their projects with others and fork them.

Beyond the basic free site, CodePen has different ways in which it can be used; one of which
is CodePen for Education. CodePen for Education is a very powerful tool to use in the
classroom. CodePen for Education has four different modes in which it can be used: Collab
Mode, Professor Mode, Presentation Mode, and Privacy. Having these four different modes
allows teachers to present code to a classroom, have many students working on one pen at
the same time, and provides the ability to create an unlimited amount of pens, plus many other
useful features. The drawback with CodePen for Education is that it does have a monthly
subscription cost. However, it is a reasonable cost.

CodePen.io is a powerful online source that will be used highly in the proposed project.

3. Technology requirements

The parent technology for the project is WordPress. WordPress will be used to house all of the
curricula. The WordPress site will be built using a custom coded theme. This theme will be built
using HTML, CSS, and PHP. Along with the custom coded theme, the site will also contain
search engine optimization (SEO) using the Yoast plugin.

Added to the site will be the LearnDash plugin. Using LearnDash, I will build out lessons which
will contain videos, screencasts, CodePen.io, and Google Slides. Along with the Google Slides,
the plugin Pear Deck will be used to create interaction between students and the lessons in
the classroom.

The LearnDash add-on BadgeOS will be added to this plugin. This add-on is used to award
points and badges throughout the lessons contained in the curriculum. The WooCommerce
plugin will also be added to the WordPress. The purpose of the WooCommerce is for users
to be able to purchase the course.

4. Design workflow

Web Design

The curriculum for the project will be a web-based curriculum. The course will be online using
WordPress and the learning management system, LearnDash. After researching many different
learning management systems I decided on LearnDash because it is well supported, has many
features, and lots of add-ons that I’m looking to use in my project. Some of these add-ons
include GamePress or BadgeOS Integration, and Course Access Manager.  The reason I
chose to use WordPress with an LMS is that I feel as though it has the best UX for the project
I’m building.

Along with building out the WordPress site with the coursework on LearnDash, I will also be
creating a custom theme for the site to match my curriculum’s branding.

 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN BRIEF

High-Level Overview:
I’m designing a twenty-day facilitated unit for middle school students and teachers that is designed to make teaching students front-end web development easy for the teacher and engaging for students. This is important because there are very few resources available with the teacher and students in mind for teaching/learning front-end web development and written especially for the classroom environment. As a result of this learning experience, learners will be able to build a basic website.
Content Topic:	Big Idea:
The content topic being explored in this unit will be the basics of learning front-end web development. The languages the unit will focus on is HTML and CSS.	Students will understand the basic layout of an HTML webpage and be able to style it with CSS.
Misunderstanding or Gap:
Most students and teachers won’t have had experience with writing HTML and CSS before. This will be their first step in front-end web development. Some students may have had experience in using Scratch, but this course focuses on a different language than that of Scratch. Therefore, this could cause students to have misunderstandings of how the code works.

6 Facets of Understanding:
Explanation: Students will be able to explain how HTML tags work, discuss different tags and what they do, the importance of opening and closing tags, and explain how CSS connects to HTML.	Perspective: Students will be able to look at many different websites and explain how the website was created using HTML by describing different HTML tags that could have been used and CSS styles that were used.
Interpretation: Students will be able to look at another student’s code and be able to interpret what the code does. The students will be able to explain what each aspect of the code would like on a website.	Empathy: Students will be able to receive feedback from other students about the ability to read and understand their final project.
Application: Students will be able to build a basic HTML website and style it with basic CSS.	Self-Knowledge: Students will be able to review their own code and fix any mistakes which are making their site not work correctly.

Why/Enduring Understanding(s):

Learners will understand that HTML is the language used to create the skeleton of a webpage. Students will understand how to use HTML to create a website and will also understand how to use CSS to style the website.

Evidence of Understanding:

The evidence of understanding will be the students' final project which will be a basic HTML website with images, hyperlinks, and headings.

Learning Flow:

Learning Theory(ies):	Pedagogies:
The learning theory that will be used in this project is the Multiple Intelligence Theory by Howard Gardner. What makes this curriculum different than those currently on the market and also more conducive to a classroom is the use of multiple intelligences. Along with the Multiple Intelligence theory, the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy will also be incorporated.	Hands-on activities: These activities will not be on the computer; these activities will be actual hands-on activities. By doing these activities, the kinesthetic learners will be able to create meaning of the code they are learning. Group Code Challenges: Students will have the opportunity to work with their peers which creates a deeper understanding of what they’re learning. This also reaches the interpersonal intelligence. Error-Analysis: Analyzing and evaluating are higher level thinking skills according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. If students can evaluate another’s code and analyze it for error, the students will have a deeper understanding of the concepts they’re learning. Creation: The highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy is creation. Students will be creating their own website from scratch which meets this highest level. Gamification: According to Juho Hamari in “Do Badges Increase User Activity?” learning experiences that involve gamification elements such as badging have more engaged learners. 1
Inspiration:
Creative Computing Code.org Web Design for Kids

1 Hamari, Juho. (2017). Do badges increase user activity? A field experiment on effects of gamification.

Computers in Human Behavior. 71. 469-478. 10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.036.

5. Work plan and milestones

Task 1: WordPress website up with LearnDash installed and all plugins. Non-curriculum web
pages complete

• Buy domain name
• WordPress setup on local host
• LearnDash plugin setup
• Learn how LearnDash works, adding courses, adding lessons, etc.
• All plugins installed and knowledge of how they work
• Create homepage
• Create About the Curriculum page
• Create blog and write first blog page and post
• Take Lynda courses
• WordPress Plugins: SEO
• Add SEO to current pages

Task 2: Teacher Guide Written and Uploaded  on Website

• Rework current teacher’s guide
• Create sample of final student project
• Add section about CodePen.io
• Add Why anyone can teach this
• How to use the LearnDash (maybe create a screencast)
• Rework layout

Task 3: Week 1 Curriculum Complete

• Finish week 1 curriculum
• Start and finish weeks days 3-5
• Rework days 1 & 2
• Create printables
• Create badges
• Learn different quizzing types on LearnDash
• Create quiz for the week
• Edit all materials
• Print classroom activities that are printable
• Photograph activities and upload to lesson plans

Task 4: Week 2 Curriculum Complete

• Create activities, quizzes, etc.
• Curate videos from web sources
• Create any screencasts needed
• Create printables
• Create badges
• Create quiz for the week
• Edit all materials
• Print classroom activities that are printable
• Photograph activities and upload to lesson plans

Task 5: Week 3 Curriculum Complete

• Create activities, quizzes, etc.
• Write lesson plans
• Create slides for lesson
• Curate videos from web sources
• Create any screencasts needed
• Create printables
• Create badges
• Create quiz for the week
• Edit all materials
• Print classroom activities that are printable
• Photograph activities and upload to lesson plans

Task 6: Week 4 Curriculum Complete

• Create activities, quizzes, etc.
• Write lesson plans
• Create slides for lesson
• Curate videos from web source
• Create any screencasts needed
• Create printables
• Create badges
• Create quiz for the week
• Edit all materials
• Print classroom activities that are printable
• Photograph activities and upload to lesson plans

Task 7: Custom Theme with Logo and Branding

• Create logo for product
• Create color palette
• Code custom theme
• Take Lynda Course
• WordPress: Building Themes from Scratch Using Underscores

Task 8: User Testing of Curriculum and Site

• Contact teachers and principals to get users for testing
• Send user guide, sample student website, and week 1 of curriculum to users
• Collect information from teachers and students about the curriculum
• Make changes to curriculum after getting feedback from users

Task 9: WooCommerce Setup with Courses

• Take Lynda Courses
• WordPress: ECommerce
• WordPress ECommerce: WooCommerce
• WordPress: Customizing WooCommerce Themes
• Setup site with WooCommerce
• Create custom WooCommerce theme to match logo and branding

Task 10: Site Live and Working

• Launch site online
• User test to make sure everything is working correctly
  

  

Milestone 1	WordPress Site Setup with LearnDash
	At this milestone, the project will be a functioning WordPress site on my localhost. LearnDash will be installed along with all of the plugins needed for LearnDash. I will also have learned the layout of LearnDash and add courses, lessons, videos, etc.
Milestone 2	20 Days of Curriculum Laid Out with Specific Learning Goals and Sample Website Built
	For the proposal, I have laid out what topic will be taught each week. At this milestone, it will be broken down even further to what specific skill will be taught each day. This will be laid out in a Google Doc. The purpose of this step is to work through what each day of the curriculum will look like. I’ll be creating a sample website (student final project) so as to create the curriculum using a backward design approach.
Milestone 3	Days 1-5 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 5 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. These activities will focus on the HTML skeleton and file management.
Milestone 4	Days 6-10 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 10 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. During these lessons, the instruction will focus on basic HTML tags and the students will start adding tags to their webpage.
Milestone 5	Days 11-15 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 15 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. These activities will focus on the basics of CSS.
Milestone 6	Days 16-20 of Curriculum Curated and Built Out on WordPress site
	When this milestone is met the project will continue to be working on my localhost with curriculum on the site. The project will have 20 days of completed curriculum including activities, videos, worksheets, classroom printables, badging, and any quizzes. With the completion of this milestone, all of the curricula will be written.
Milestone 7	WooCommerce Setup with Courses
	At the completion of this milestone, all of the courses will be on the site and the site will be running on my localhost. There will be a sample course for free and the full course will be for sale on the site.
Milestone 8	Non-Curriculum Pages Built and Content Added with SEO
	When this milestone is finished all of the pages on the website will work. These pages will include a home page, about the project page, curriculum page, and a blog. At least one blog post will be added at this point. The use of the Yoast plugin will be added here along with SEO strategies.
Milestone 9	Custom Theme Built
	At this point, the site will be nearly complete. All of the plugins will be working, the curriculum will be on the site, and now the custom theme will be complete. The site will have a nice layout that has a custom logo and branding.
Milestone 10	Website Live Online
	With the completion of this milestone, the site will be live online and be working properly.

6. References

• Code.org
• code.org
• https://code.org/
• This is a website that teaches kids how to code.

• CodePen.io
• Tim Sabat, Alex Vazquez, Chris Coyier
• https://codepen.io/
• This is a development environment where user can write code and see the outcome right in the
• browser.

• Do Badges Increase User Activity? A Field Experiment on Effects of Gamification
• Juho Hamari
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273704751_Do_badges_increase_user_activity_A_field
• _experiment_on_effects_of_gamification
• This article is the results of the field experiment about gamification and user activity.