2021 Space for Innovation: Project Parli Launch!

For the Space for Innovation Project, our class members collaborated to create a website designed to engage both students and teachers alike consisting of resources that will assist in understanding, learning, and preparing for the Pennsylvania FFA State Parliamentary Procedure Leadership Development Event. In order to create this website, we worked diligently throughout the semester to contact individuals for their parliamentary procedure resources, sort these resources into their appropriate categories, and upload them onto the website. 

Our Website: https://sites.google.com/psu.edu/psuparli 

Morgan: For this project, I contributed my skills in multiple ways to help develop the website, but more so behind the scenes of the website. I first worked on gathering information including our plans, purpose, and goals, and organizing them onto a document for planning purposes. I also drafted and wrote the email that was sent to the PA Ag Ed listserve, with the help of Dr. Foster, to gain resources from fellow professionals in the field. After resources started to file in, I then created a folder on the shared Google drive and uploaded all of the resources sent to me directly and that was gained through the form. This included resources from teachers that emailed me directly and the superintendent of the state competition.

My other contributions to helping develop the website included editing and creating the introduction video found on the homepage of the website. I took the raw footage we each filmed and used my digital skills to create the video we have on the site. Additionally, I searched and sorted through the NAAE Communities of Practice pages consisting of Parliamentary Procedure resources to find the resources relevant to our website and added those to the resource pages throughout the site. I also spent some time locating and uploading the national final team's video to the website for users to take advantage of as an example. 

Mikey: My contribution to this assignment, for the most part, was frontloaded in building the website. In the beginning stages, I did a lot of searching to figure out what would be the easiest and most functional platform for this website. For the sake of collaboration, I decided that Google Sites would be easiest for us to work as a team. After identifying that this was our platform, the annoying process of designing the website began. I am not an artistic or creative person at all. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I hate art, but I can easily say that I am one of the least artistically inclined people that I know. This made it difficult to design a website that looked good and allowed for the functionality that we were looking for. After hours of trying and deleting, I was finally able to build a backbone that I was happy with. With that out of the way, I had to teach the rest of my peers how to use and edit the site so we could all begin to collaborate together. Throughout the rest of the project, I remained the point person for all things technology and website functionality related. This includes things such as uploading videos, fixing broken links, and standardizing website design techniques. As the project progressed, I was tasked with creating the LDE overview at the state and national levels. Initially, I was planning on researching the LDE and putting a bunch of bullet points into the website. I found however that it is not as visually appealing, so I instead chose to make google slides presentations. For both the state and national competitions, I researched the LDE and made a detailed presentation, which is embedded into the website. On the overview pages, I also provided useful links in the form of buttons. 

Ella: This space for innovation project included the need for many different skill sets. The website let each of us have a specific role that would help get it all pulled together in a short amount of time. One of my main goals was reaching out to Mr. Brandon Walters, a parliamentary procedure professional, to help us collect different resources and give us advice on what we could include in the website. Although I did not have much experience with building websites, this allowed me to help collect a number of resources to be used in the website. I was unfortunately quarantined at the most important and final days of putting the final touches on the website and bringing our resources together. This made it hard for me to contribute over the week that I was not able to meet and get tasks accomplished. 

The second part of the project that I contributed to was creating a video to be added into a small introduction video that went on the introduction page of our website. To do this I had to create a zoom meeting and record a video to get all of the teachers and students who will be accessing our website excited about the future of Parliamentary Procedure. Since I have experienced the National Parliamentary Procedure competition from both a competing aspect and collegiate assistant aspect I was able to include some of my knowledge about both sides and encourage future participation! Overall, I think that all of our roles played a major part in us pulling together this exceptional resource.

Mckenzie: My contribution to this assignment was primarily in the organization of materials as well as in the collection of advice from the advisors of successful Parliamentary Procedure teams in the state LDE competition. My first task for this assignment was to gather advice from past winners of the state LDE. In order to do this, I created a google form titled “Collection of Parliamentary Procedure Advice”. I emailed this form to six of the most recent advisors that are state LDE winners. Of the six advisors that I contacted, three were able to respond with advice that they have for other advisors who are preparing their own teams for the state LDE event. I then added all the advice that was sent out to the bottom of the page titled “Resource Library”. On top of collecting advice, I also sorted the resources that were given to us so that they could be added to our website. In order to do so, I sorted through all of the resources that we have been sent, and sorted them into categories such as “Motion Cards & Questions” and “Team Problem Solving Practicum Examples”. I also went into each document that we decided to use for the website and made sure that it was in a google document and accessible to anyone with a link leading to that document. 

Our Advice: Advice that we would give to other students in this course is to find something you are passionate about, or a need in the profession of the agricultural education community, and start brainstorming ideas for this project from there! We felt a true need to create this website of resources, tips, and more for educators across the state as something we can all benefit from. Other advice we want to offer future students in this course is to make sure that you have a clear understanding and goal of what you intend to create for the project to help it run more smoothly. Find something you are good at, and use your skills to your benefit throughout the creation of your project. Do not be afraid to try something new and innovative, it may lead you to some pretty cool results!