For my ENGL 395 Faire Project I am going to create and develop a web site that contains information about Ebonics. The web site will in part contain background information as to the origins of Ebonics and in part contain pertinent information about the development, acquisition and usage of Ebonics by peoples of color. As part of the web site there would also be a mini tutorial that incorporates both auditory and visual multimedia components in order to provide the user with a more in depth and comprehensive knowledge of Ebonics.

My plan of attack is as follows: I plan to use the next couple of weeks to gather pertinent and relevant information on the history and usage of Ebonics. I will use both library database references and the Internet to gather the bulk of the information I will include on the web site. I may also have to contact organizations that specifically have an interest in the issue of Ebonics in order to get more current resources and literature. During this information gathering stage I plan to actively analyze, edit, and modify various forms of information so as to extract the pertinent information from them to later include on the web site. The most difficult part of this stage will be trying to gather either audio and/ or video materials that I could include as part of the web site. In the case of gathering these multimedia resources I may have to create some myself by utilizing campus resources such as equipment that can be checked out from Media Distribution Services (MDS).

After this information gathering stage I plan to use the next two weeks to create and develop a web site where I can incorporate the information and resource material I have gathered. I do not anticipate that creating the actual web page will be difficult, however incorporating the textual, pictorial, and multimedia resources I have acquired may prove to be a bit more of a challenge. For most of this stage I will be able to use the web page software (Adobe Pagemill 3.0) I have on my iMac. However, if I need to do any video or audio editing I will need to obtain special permission from Dr. Rubber to utilize the video and sound editing equipment located in the Faculty Media room in the Education building. Since the incorporation of multimedia resources represents a major technical concern in completing my project I will make sure to discuss any aspects which require faculty authorization well in advance with Dr. Rubba. As for any other technical concerns that may come up I am well aware of campus computing resources and have adequate textual references in order to deal with most technical problems I may run into.

During the final stage of my project I plan to put the finishing touches on the web page and run test to see whether the links work correctly and whether the web site as a whole is "user friendly." At this stage I will also finalize any multimedia resources I have incorporated and will check to be sure that they are functioning correctly within the web pages themselves. If the entire web site (including the multimedia resources) is sufficiently large enough I will burn the web pages and accompanying resources onto a CD for easier loading and usage. Since I am creating this project on a Macintosh I will also test it on a MS Windows based platform. Lastly, I will run some comparisons on performance and overall look of the web pages on both Netscape Communicator and MS Internet Explorer in order to determine how best to display it. As preparation for the actual Faire I will obtain faculty authorization to check out a lab top computer from MDS and load the web site onto it for display at the Faire