Tuttle,+Jennifer

 =Design Document Guidelines = Jennifer Tuttle's Design Project

Design Idea
For my design idea, I will create a collaborative learning environment using a Google Site for a mock catering company where employees can document recipes, share administrative information and reference materials with one another.

At most catering companies, the Head Chef, Head Cooks and Preparation Workers do not always work on the same shifts; a collaborative social software learning environment would help improve communication among a culinary staff. This website will allow a Head Chef to communicate daily tasks that need to be completed for catering events, help employees reduce food waste, and allow them to learn new cooking techniques, recipes and industry related trends. After a culinary staff has utilized the website, they will be able to work and communicate efficiently with one another. This would result in higher employee morale and a desire to work as a team.  To help me accomplish my goal, I will refer to http://www.bakespace.com/ to get ideas on how to develop a collaborative learning environment for a catering company. media type="custom" key="3427178" ||  ||
 * //**Ricks Feedback:**//

Audience
This SSLE will focus on a small catering staff that will include a Head Chef, two Head Cooks, and five to seven Food Preparation Workers. Employees will be required to participant in the SSLE when they are on shift and they have the option of contributing to the SSLE when they are not working. The employee needs will be met by allowing employees on separate shifts to communicate electronically with other another and be able to view reference materials.

Content
Employees will learn recipes, cooking techniques, and industry trends. It would be best for employees to use a SSLE because it’s paperless, centralized and has up to date information that can be access from any computer. The types of media formats that will be required for employees to learn the content are videos and pictures. As far as copyright, staff will photograph their own recipes and video files will be taken from an open educational resource or they will be produced by their own staff.

Format
A Google site will serve as my base tool for my social software learning environment. My website will contain seven pages with the following headings: home, employee schedule, catering events, recipes, food orders, resources, discussion and annoucements. On the home page, employees can view a company announcement feed and a daily task list of menu items that need to be prepared for different catering events. The employee schedule page will have a calendar where employees can view their work schedule. The catering events page will also have a calendar that will tell employees what catering events will be taking place throughout the year. The page will also contain map quest and a weather gadget. This will help employees plan out driving routes and pack food appropriately for weather related conditions for each event.

The recipe page will contain company recipes, as well as a metric conversion gadget that will allow employees to check their math when converting units for recipes. The food order page allows employees to enter in food items that need to be ordered by the Head Chef. The page will also contain a gadget where employees can find out what fruits and vegetables are in season before they place an order.

The resource page will serve as a reference area where employees and view RSS feeds, social bookmarks, videos and quizzes about new cooking techniques, recipes and news about culinary industry.

The discussion forum contains link to Google Groups. At Google Groups, employee can communicate recipes ideas and ask cooking related questions amongst themselves.

The annoucement page contains all company memos.

Also, on each page, the comment and attachment tool has been enabled so employees can post comments and/or upload word documents, PDF files or other information that is relevant to each page.

Evaluate & Refine
I tried to make the Google site, Professional Chef, as user friendly as possible. The small pieces such as photos, widgets, gadgets, videos and feeds are organized to fit the objectives of each page of the site. There are a few format changes that I made to my learning environment; I widened the catering event calendar and the food order spread sheet so it is easier for an employee to read. Unfortunately, I was not able to add scroll bars to my RSS feeds due to the way Google sites is setup.

For future versions of Professional Chef, I would like to make a few changes to the recipe page. I would like to add a picture that depicts what each recipe should look like. For recipes that are difficult to make, I think it would be useful to add a slide show that shows the different stages of a recipe. I would also like to add a cake decorating and a candy making reference page where employees can learn decorating techniques.