Old Colony Archives
Students design two town Web sites
CIT sophomores present Acushnet projects
By Collette Pelletier, Standard-Times correspondent
June 4, 2004
ACUSHNET -- The town of Acushnet has two new Web sites, courtesy of students of Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School.
The sophomore Computer Information Technology Shop was given the task of redesigning the town's Web site and the site for the Acushnet River Valley Golf Course.
The new sites were unveiled yesterday at Town Hall.
"The Old Colony golf team uses Acushnet River Valley Golf Course as their home course so we thought it would be a good idea to have them come up with the design," said Alan Coutinho, town administrator. "When we saw the results we liked them so much that we asked them to do our town site as well."
The students created new designs, keeping most of the content from the existing sites.
"It was a total student effort," said John Souza, webmaster at Old Colony and director of the project. "They were very organized and they did a great job."
Timothy Blanchard and Alexander Amaral gave a presentation of the town's new Web site and explained its features.
A Flash intro of a picture of a town lake goes from black and white to color.
The site includes town photos, information on town departments and printable documents.
"From day one we put all of our knowledge into this project so that the people of Acushnet could enjoy it," Mr. Blanchard said.
Thomas Ouellette was the site manager for the town site, and Kyle O'Neill was assistant manager.
"The printable forms are convenient for the townspeople because it saves them a trip to Town Hall," Mr. O'Neill said.
Steve Bernat was in charge of the golf site.
"I'm a golfer myself," he said. "So I got a lot of good ideas from it."
The site includes a weather display, a history of the course, events, a map of the course with close-ups of individual holes and a monthly newsletter.
Other students involved in the project were Matthew Adriano, Heather Cardinal, David Cook, Brandon Duarte, Joshua Furtado, Bryant Hampston, Matthew Leonard, Nicole Madden, Keith Morgado and Jessica Williams.
"Old Colony never ceases to amaze me with the quality of their work," said Robert St. Jean, chairman of the Board of Selectmen. "They performed above our expectations."
David J. Ferreira, superintendent of Old Colony, expressed his pride in the students. "We appreciate the chance to have our students work in a real life setting," he said.
"We are in a technological age and our students are on the cutting edge."
Selectman David E. Wojnar issued a challenge to the students.
"We want to put a counter on the site to see if we can get a thousand hits," he said. "So get your friends to visit the site."
The address is www.acushnet.ma.us and includes a link to the Acushnet River Valley Golf Site.
The new sites soon will override the existing pages.
Photo by Jack Iddon, The Standard-Times - (top right):
Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School students and webmasters pose with a screen showing the home page of the Acushnet Web site they developed. From left, seated on the floor, are Kyle O'Neill and Tom Ouellette, and in chairs, Alex Amaral, Steve Bernat and Tim Blanchard.