Photo Gallery
Student Websites

The service project at Project H.O.M.E. was a service opportunity offered by La Salle and led by Ms. DeGennaro. From September to December, a group of La Salle students travelled to Project H.O.M.E.'s Saint Elizabeth's site each Tuesday to work with the after-school program at the site. Our goal was to teach interested students various computer skills that would be of benefit to them in the future. We did not want to bore the students with monotonous and useless information. Instead, we strived to make the computer tutoring sessions fun and enjoyable.

In the beginning of the project, we decided to teach the students computer skills by having them creating websites. However, they would not only learn how to create a website, but also how to research on the internet, work with pictures and text, and create an informative layout that others would enjoy. Since they were creating websites, they could put their own creativity to work and design the websites as they wanted the website to look.

In the beginning of the project, the plan was to have the students research jobs that they might be interested in. However, after several weeks, the students did not seem interested in researching jobs, and they were losing patience at the tutoring sessions. We decided to change the format to be more enjoyable for the students. As a part of their after-school program, the students write poems about things. For example, they wrote "I" poems about themselves, and their thoughs, hopes, and dreams. They also wrote poems about their neighborhoods. They were asked to write about their hobbies, interests and favorite things, and to list them on their websites.

It was great to watch the students as they learned how to do design the websites. Most of them already knew how to use computers and used them a lot for normal tasks such as surfing the internet and using chat programs. They were very excited about creating web pages and putting them on the internet where they could be viewed by the world. They learned how to do most of the things that we taught them quickly, and they always asked questions when they were unsure so that they could learn to do thing on their own.

During this program, we did not only teach the students at Project H.O.M.E. computer skills. We also became their friends. Although I could not go every Tuesday, I always looked forward to my afternoon on days that I could go. It was fun for me to work with the kids and to teach them things that I love to do myself.

At the end of the program, most of the students' in the program had completed their websites. They are posted at http://tux.lschs.org/projecthome/. Also, you can click here to visit a photo gallery of our work at Project H.O.M.E.