Pickerington, Ohio – July 9, 2008 – A team of students from Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical School's Multimedia program located at Pickerington High School North were selected as the winning Web Design & Development entry in the first annual Adobe School Innovation Awards program. The five member team will receive a new Lenovo laptop and will split a cash prize of $1,500. Each team member will also have their choice of Adobe educational software products, valued at $500.
Jacob Bowen, Tony Guglielmi, Kevin Matteson, Sam Morgan, and Jon Wilber, all recent graduates of Pickerington High School North, developed the winning web project entitled, "The Environment and You." The website can be viewed in HTML or Flash at www.environmentandu.info.
Team Leader Tony Guglielmi developed the concept for the website and the HTML portion of the winning site. Prior to graduation, Guglielmi received the Most Outstanding Tech Prep Multimedia Student 2008 award through the Multimedia program. Guglielmi is continuing his education at Ohio University, where he has been accepted into the highly competitive Visual Communications program. This program only takes 20 students each year.
 Lead Programmer and XML integration specialist for the site was Jon Wilber. Wilber is continuing his education at The Ohio State University to pursue a degree in Computer Programming.
Jake Bowen led the interface design, concept development, and the Flash design of the winning site. Bowen will study Digital Design at Bowling Green University in the fall.
Team members Kevin Matteson and Sam Morgan developed the site content and tested the site usability. Matteson will attend Ohio University to pursue a Computer Engineering degree this fall, while Morgan was accepted into the Visual Communications program at Ohio University.
"The judges were impressed by the visually appealing implementation of the well-chosen environment project," said Johann Zimmern of Adobe Systems, Inc. "The site topic areas are well laid out and the addition of a site search compliments the overall usability of the site. All judges agreed that your site looked very professional and the addition of Adobe Flash elements made interaction enjoyable."
The Multimedia program, led by instructor Doug Rider, has been at Pickerington High School North for only five years.
"This award is a great result for these students who put in so much extra effort to make this the best site that it could be," Rider said. "They took a very thoughtful approach to each decision about the site. It was great watching them think strategically about each aspect and bring their talents together to create a site that is really outstanding."
The Multimedia program is one of nearly 40 programs offered through Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools to high school juniors and seniors in associate schools. Students in this program build upon their interests as they use the latest technology to develop all types of media, focusing primarily on web design and video production. |
This achievement earned the group the right to compete at the National Conference in Orlando, Florida. The team attended a 4 day conference involving meetings, competition, and of course, some fun at Universal Studios and Cocoa Beach, FL. The site earned one of the top 10 spots in the country.