Daily Activities

Day 6 & 7: The Finishing Touches and Presentation

Today, you will be adding the finishing touches to your website. This may mean adding more pictures, incorporating video and/or music, or just adding important information.

You will be presenting your website to the class, so you also need to be thinking about your presentation. Your presentation should be like an advertisement for the vacation you have planned. After you present, your audience should want to buy a plane ticket and go to your destination because you have made it sound so amazing!

Day 5: Adding Information

At this point, we are all at different points with our project. Some of us have begun to build our website, while others are still collecting information. Once you have collected all of your information and written your persuasive paragraph, you can begin to build the website by going to the link below:

"https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=blogger&passive=1209600&continue=http://www.blogger.com/home&followup=http://www.blogger.com/home&ltmpl=start#s01"

On the homepage of your website you should include your persuasive paragraph, the daily itinerary, as well as some pictures of your destination. When you have those elements, you can add to them to make your website more interesting.

Day 4: Building the Website

Last week, you began organizing the details of your trip including a persuasive paragraph to include on your website as well as the itinerary. You will continue to work on this today. When you have written your paragraph and have an idea of your daily itinerary, you can begin creating the website. 

The first thing you will need to do is decide what the name or URL of your website will be.

Then you must decide on a title.

After that, you can begin building it and adding more interesting elements.

Day 3: Getting Started on your Travel Project

One suggested goal of your Geography project could be to persuade people to visit your place.  Here are some example websites that are geared towards persuading people to travel to a place.

Maui, Hawaii
http://www.concierge.com/travelguide/maui
Las Vegas
http://www.fodors.com/world/north-america/usa/nevada/las-vegas/
Thanksgiving in New York
http://travel.newyorkguest.com/package/Thanksgiving-in-New-York
Alaska Denali Park
http://www.alaskatravel.com/tours/tour-x300.html
Malaysia
http://www.vacationsandtravelmag.com/MalaysianPersuasion/751/1719/3/0/0/
Waerford
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dan-and-jenn/1/1262431125/tpod.html


3 Elements of Persuasion

1. Need
2. Plan
3. Practicality

NEED: Why do we need to go there. What is interesting, useful, exciting about this place.
PLAN: How will I get there? What will I do there? Where will I stay? How long will I be there?
PRACTICALITY: How much? How long? Is it too far away? Is it dangerous? Is it a good time to go (too hot/cold)?

Select your "place" and start to think about persuasion.


More on persuasion:
How to build a travel website
http://www.buildwebsitesuccess.com/how-to-build-a-travel-website.html
On line travel booking: What influences consumers
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-credibility/travel-booking.shtml
Online persuasion- 7 ways to persuade people
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/online-persuasion.shtml

Today, you will be planning the details of your trip. Last week, you decided on the location of your trip. Now, you need to answer the following questions:

•  Who is going on the trip?
• You need to decide who you are planning the trip for, so that when you begin to create your website you can gear your advertising language to a certain group of people.
• For example, you could plan it for college students on spring break, families with children,  a couple who is in love, or people who are looking for a traveling adventure.
•  How long will they stay?
• You need to decide how long the vacation will be. Think about where the trip is and how much time the people going will need in order to see and do all the things that the place has to offer.
•  How much will it cost? 
• Get a general idea of how much the trip will cost. You can research airplane tickets at the following websites:
• www.kayak.com
• http://www.travelocity.com/
• http://www.expedia.com/
• http://www.cheaptickets.com
• http://www.orbitz.com
• All of these websites can also give you information about hotels and car rentals.
• If you are planning a trip within the U.S., you might consider traveling by train:
• http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/HomePage
• Where will they stay each night?
• You may only have one place for them to stay, but you may need to find several places, if your trip includes many different cities.
• Try to get an idea of how much it cost to stay at the places that you find.
• Where will they eat?
• Find some good restaurant recommendations.
• Google, "good restaurants in _________________".
• What activities will they do while they are there?
• Find the most interesting things to do in your vacation destination. Maybe there are museums, wineries, historical sightseeing, outdoor adventures, or maybe your vacation is just about relaxing on the beach. 

Plan a vacation that you would want to go on, so that when you begin to design your website, you can make it sound like the most interesting place to travel in the world!!!

Day 1:

• Introduction to the course
• Brainstorm travel destinations
• Research