The Michigan Council of Women in Technology Foundation takes great pleasure in announcing the Finalists for the 2015 Website Design Competition for High School Girls. This year’s theme is “Food! Glorious food!”

This year 139 teams from 30 Michigan high schools enrolled in the contest’s two divisions: Beginner and Advanced. Contestants could enter individually or with one other team member.

An incredible amount of talent was on display for MCWT’s 75 First Round judges, who are technology professionals from Ford Motor, GM, Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles, Fast Switch, Google, Compuware, Cisco, Mercedes Benz Financial Services, J. Edward Training Group, Macomb Community College, Altair, Ciber, City of Livonia, Comerica, Davenport University, Epsilon, HP, Ideal Record Solutions, Jacobs Engineering, Learning Care Group, Orchid Orthopedic Solutions, State of Michigan, Tyler Brock Media, Group Associates, JDM Consulting, Microsoft, MEEMIC Insurance, Dynatrace, Syntel, Magnetic, Quicken Loans, and Web Savvy Marketing.

The teachers should be very proud of all that their students have accomplished. The contestants should be even more proud of the impressive amount of talent they possess.

Finals Day of the competition is Saturday, December 5, at Blue Care Network in Southfield. The Advanced Division finalists will present their websites one at a time to the panel of distinguished Finals Day judges. The Beginner Division finalists will also attend Finals Day, where they will be honored and the winners will be announced. The finalists will be contacted with further information. Teachers, family of the finalists, first round judges, and MCWT board members will be invited as well. FINALISTS WILL RECEIVE AN EMAIL SHORTLY REGARDING THEIR INSTRUCTIONS FOR DEC. 5.

In each division, monetary awards ranging from $50 up to $750 will be given to the top six finishers in each division. The remaining finalists will receive non-monetary prizes. All contestants, whether or not they made the finals, will receive Certificates of Participation from MCWT Foundation.

Below are the 12 teams of Advanced Division finalists in no particular order.

Sontia Stewart	Fitzgerald High School
Cristen Sunga and Kathryn Chess	Lakeview High School
Caitlin Beirne and Olivianne James	Lake Shore High School
Christina Li	Utica Center for Math, Science, and Technology
Shreya Mullapudi	Farmington High School
Jasmine Pearson	Plymouth High School
Jillian Ritchey	Clarkston High School
Mackenzie Johnson	Lake Shore High School
Isabella Spanberger and Sarah Yaw	Walled Lake Northern
Sarah Graves	Fredrick Pankow Center
Varmitha Hullathy	International Academy East
Sadia Jiban and Maliha Latif	Fitzgerald High School

Below are the 12 teams of Beginner Division finalists in no particular order. 

Grace Likins and Rhiannon Chisholm	Lake Shore High School
Manisha Solipuram	Walled Lake Central High
Hannah Watkins	Lake Shore High School
Summer Nguyen	International Academy East
Caroline Scheuing	Canton High School
Afsana Rahman	Fitzgerald High School
Kate Bartley	Hartland High School
Claudia Chen	Salem High School
Madison Werthmann	Lake Shore High School
Lina Jebara	Crestwood High School
Joselyn Schlosser	Canton High School
Ava Wood	Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center
Nicole Kuang	Canton High School

Dress up.  Look professional. Have your visual/handout ready.

CAITLIN, OLIVIANNE, MACKENZIE:  Can you please check this out, for T2, and get back to me with your thoughts on whether or not this could be doable?

We will be presenting our websites in-class.  Beginners (MONDAY and TUESDAY), you will have 2-3 minutes to deliver a watered-down version of your website. ONE DISCUSSION POINT from pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, NET.  Advanced (WEDNESDAY), you will have 4-5 minutes to share your speech.  ENTIRE ESSAY.

• Audience, use this form for each presenter: Audience Form.
• All presenters, use this form once for your self evaluation: Self Evaluation Form.

Don’t forget to share a handout (food for 25) or visual with the audience.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinners and opportunity to spend time with family and friends.

Mrs. Candela’s Tips:

1) Begin and end strong!

Madison’s opening lines in her introduction: Opening up a blank document is a daunting task no matter what the reason behind it is. Whether writing an essay or plotting a short story or coding a website, that bright white screen can seem like a dragon and can make you feel like an ill-equipped knight. This blinding white screen left me with this feeling in my chest, and it refused to leave even after I changed the style settings in Notepad++. But eventually, I gathered my courage and prepared to make a website.

2) Be specific.  Drip with details.  Explain the process. Overdo it.

My font is something that I picked for my website very early; I wanted something very minimalistic that did not take away from the website itself.

Which font?  Name, please.  System versus Google? How does it tie to your site’s theme and overall approach? Sans versus Sans serif.

3) Advanced, you literally want to point out everything!

Layout, headings, favicon, multimedia, fonts, colors, social media…everything on that home page.

4) Don’t say “really cute” or “amazing” without extreme description.

I felt the same about my social media icon, I think that it is really cute and I really enjoy the fact that it went with my theme so well that I could act as if the earth was the bird’s egg.

How did it go so well?  What about the bird’s egg?  Huh?

5) Make decisions.

Going from having a partner last year to now working as an individual is a totally different experience. Doing everything on your own is a lot harder than diving up the work evenly between two people. Being alone you get to choose when and how everything is going to get done, so you have to manage your time wisely. This outcome was a lot more rewarding because of the fact that you go through the tutorials and watch the videos, but do not know how it will actually come out until we do it ourselves. I did enjoy being independent and watching eve thing by myself, but I do like how interactive the intro class is. I think meeting somewhere in the middle will benefit both sides.

Don’t be wishy-washy.  If you liked something, say it.  If you didn’t, explain your rationale and how it could be better.  Which method of creation, partnership or individual, did you enjoy the most?  Explain.

6) Define, define, define.

After I made it I then went to go look at in on my website and saw some spots were not erased thoroughly enough. I then went back on the computer and proceeded to erase them, but instead of re saving my file to the web, I saved it as a Png.

What is a .png?  How is that file type different than other picture types?  In what situation would you use it?  Be nerdy here.

7) Stay positive.

I love how my website turned out, despite my favicon not working and my image on my first page not showing up, I worked very hard on my website and am very proud of myself and how the finished product looked.

Don’t focus on what didn’t work.  Don’t point out your flaws.  Instead, focus on the positives and only address negatives if they lead to learning experiences/growth.

8) Reread your blog entries.  They have such great “stuff” that you are welcomed, and encouraged, to throw into your speech.