Students launch websites, social presence

Drury has an even stronger social presence on the Internet, thanks to the recent launch of fifteen new websites, designed and maintained by the COMM 386 Web Communication class.

The class, taught by Dr. Jonathan Groves, was assigned the task of designing and building a web presence around a topic of their choice.

"It's not just a web design class," said Dr. Groves, "We talk about HTML, CSS and we think about why you should maintain a web presence versus the how. You have to think about how to deliver content in a meaningful way."

The class was added to the Communication department curriculum five years ago, under the multimedia production and journalism major. Historically, the class consists of a variety of majors, from advertising to graphic design.

Molly Riddle, a junior advertising and public relations major with an emphasis on social media, created Cat-Tastic, www.mollykatharine.com, a website that archives cat videos.

"I spend a lot of time watching cat videos and I got tired of skipping through the lame ones on YouTube," says Riddle. "A lot of my friends always send me cat videos as well. I thought it would be neat to have a site that highlights the elite ones, like Keyboard Cat, Frankenstein Cat, and so on. It's kind of a becoming a pop-culture trend."

Riddle and her classmates spent the first part of the semester learning how to work with HTML and style sheets. The class also used WordPress, a publishing platform and software that provides assistance with templates and web design.

John Dozier, a design art major with a minor in business administration, launched johndozierdesign.com, a personal portfolio site.

"This was the first site I have ever made, so it was a little intimidating at first. You just don't realize how many elements go into making and maintaining a website. The great thing about this class is that you can make your website as advanced as you would like. There are limitations of course, but Dr. Groves tries to give you all the information and resources you will need," said Dozier.

Kaitlyn Jaeger, advertising and public relations major, agrees with Dozier.

"I was pretty frustrated at first. It was pretty much trial and error for a while before I finally got a hang of it," says Jaeger, who started Memo Mems, ktjcheckit.com, a site that chronicles events that happened on a specific date, a year ago.

Jaeger says, "It was really interesting to look back at all the things that had happened last year and remember where I was or how I felt when it happened. I feel like the people who visit my site also get that same experience because I got several positive comments from not only my friends, but complete strangers who happened to come across it."

For their final, students presented their websites and ideas to a panel of professional reviewers, consisting of local community members specializing in the fields of public relations, marketing, journalism and other related fields.