User:ThePlaz

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Spring 2007 Carnival Valor


On my site you will find:

  • Updates on what I am involved in
  • Links to my other projects
  • My comments on the world
  • Photos and videos I have taken
  • School work and notes I have made
Websites

My most popular project, is GridView [1], an app for Facebook which lets you add the profile pics of all of you're friends to your Facebook profile. As I wrote this, I have over 1.3 million users! GridView is expanding now with some light angel funding and I am managing overseas developers.

I host and produce the video podcast Tecker 911 [2] along with some of my friends. Tecker 911 is a series of 5-15 minute shows each which covers a technology topic in a way which is relevant for ordinary people, with a focus towards students and our community. Tecker 911 is also shown on our local public access channel Channel 11.

I am the founder and primary contributor to SeniorQuoter, [3] an open-source web application for senior quotes collections for high school yearbooks. In 11th Grade, I lead a Dynamic Website Building Instruction and Practical Experience Group Study at my high school. I helped 4 other students learn PHP and MySQL and then I project managed version 2 of SeniorQuoter, the administration interface.

I am a host on the weekly audio podcast The Weekly Spin [4] where we discuss the top 5 or so news stories of the week.

Tecker and Conflicter were question and answer services I built in 10th Grade. They never really caught on, but they were the perfect way to learn PHP. Dictionary Robot is something I tarted last year, but abandoned later. In 10th Grade, I was a member of Team 484 and in 11th Grade I was their webmaster.

In 8th and 9th Grades I wrote bunch of programs for the TI-83+. You can see them below. My favorite is FERRIS, which helps solve the unit problem in IAG/IMP 4. A few years ago I was a mid-level contributor on Wikipedia . I also made some improvements for MediaWiki, the software that runs ThePlaz.com and Wikipedia. The drop down menu in the site notice is one of the best.

School Work

I hope that this knowledge will help people less-fortunate than me persevere and succeed. All of my work is under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license, meaning that you may use it and re-post it anywhere as long as you post my name/nickname, provide a link back to my site, and don't make money off my work. Many people visit my site from overseas where the school system is not as good. See Site Mission Statement for more

    • For 9th Grade I have posted projects I did on the computer
    • For 10th Grade I have posted not only my work I made on a computer but laboriously scanned all of my handwritten notes and worksheets
    • For 11th Grade I am only posting my own notes (no worksheets) from very structured classes; I am scaling back
    • See my 12th Grade Schedule
    • See also my Notes Key
Other

Below, see some of my 20,000 digital photos I have, videos I made, my collection of student tools, and quotes and reviews of some of ThePlaz.com services others have written.

I have some Personal Philosophies including that PDAs should be allowed in school. For English 10, I wrote about The Essential Separation Between Church and State. In English 9, I wrote about the dangers of Hazing. See also my Site Mission Statement.

This summer I attended the Pennsylvania Governor's Schools of Excellence in Information, Society & Technology, a 5 week summer program at Drexel University. What I learned

Read some of the College Application Essays I have written.

See where my nickname is from; Self-Branding

So welcome to my site, feel free to look around. And it's a wiki, so feel free to hit "edit" on the top of nearly every page if you have something important to add. If it's nonsense, I will just remove it.

See ThePlaz's Biography
Others

Write your own description about me Post it anywhere on the site and I will find it

Resume

Michael Plasmeier
"ThePlaz"
MIT 2013 student
Web developer and project manager with a focus on user experience and design

MIT

  • Started Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a freshman in August 2009
  • Expected graduation 2013
  • Undecided in major, interested in Computer Science (6), Public Planning (11), Management (15), Political Science (17)

SocialMenu

  • Developer for SocialMenu as a UROP (research assistant), Viral Communications Group, Media Lab
    • iPhone Web programming, Facebook development, layout

Consulting

Bespoke Media Group (2009-)

[5] Lone developer responsible for creating and implementing promotions on Facebook, as well as advising companies on social media strategy. Work closely with clients to explain their options and implement their vision.

Websites

GridView

GridView (http://apps.facebook.com/gridview) is an application for Facebook which lets users put all of their friends on their profile and makes a photo mosaic of themselves with their friend’s photos. GridView has over 1.3 million installs.

GridView is part of SocialView. SocialView is a partnership I am the majority owner of. I have already learned many things about running a business, including managing contractors, and focusing on strategies to increase revenue. Last year, I worked with an outsourcing firm to build multi-thousand dollar flash application which I designed and created the specifications for.

4Change

4Change (http://apps.facebook.com/forchange) is a petitions application that uses the power of social networks to spread petitions. I created the vision and guided a consultant who built the application. 4Change is a SocialView application.

SeniorQuoter

SeniorQuoter (http://seniorquoter.org) is an installable PHP application which lets high school yearbooks streamline their senior quote collection process. SeniorQuoter is freely licensed under the GNU GPL. SeniorQuoter features a clean and simple, highly-usable interface for both students and yearbook departments.

In the second quarter of the 2007-08 school year, I taught a group at my school how to build dynamic websites with PHP and MySQL. After they learned the skills, we created the administration interface for version 2 of SeniorQuoter. I strengthened my leadership skills as a project manager.

Videre

Videre is a project I lead and developed at the Pennsylvania Governor's Schools of Excellence in Information, Society & Technology. Videre is a proof of concept of how online gradebooks can be improved. It extends existing online data and presents it in graphical form, finds trends, and keeps updates clear with email and text message alerts as well as newsfeeds.

Geoov

Geoov (http://geoov.com) is a cluster based mapping site for flickr. It uses Google Maps.

Tecker

Tecker (http://tecker.net) is a social question and answer service I wrote in PHP during 10th Grade. Although Tecker never caught on with the public, it was very helpful for me in developing my coding skills and researching online communities.

ThePlaz.com

ThePlaz.com (http://theplaz.com) is my main website. It a centralized repository of what I am up to. It also serves as a place to store my smaller projects, such as pure CSS dropdowns for MediaWiki and applications for the TI-83+ calculator. I also post up educational resources and my thoughts on the world which I hope will benefit others.

ThePlaz.com had more than 1.4 million page views in 2008 and has about 5,000 pages of content. I also have over 15,000 of my photos on flickr. Most of my photos and work on ThePlaz.com is licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse for non commercial purposes.

Dictionary Robot

Dictionary Robot (http://dictionaryrobot.com) is a prototype which lets students look up multiple words at a time in an online dictionary. This will revolutionize the way students make vocabulary lists.

ForumsPlace

ForumsPlace (http://forumsplace.com) is a community site I created as part of SocialView. ForumsPlace is a forums hosting site that has plans to become much more.

Media

Tecker 911

Tecker 911 (http://911.tecker.net) is a video podcast which shows ordinary people how technology can help their ordinary lives. Tecker 911 is also shown on Haverford’s local cable public access channel, bringing the show to tens of thousands of people.

Tecker 911 is great community service, since we bring technology education to the both the residents of Havertown (on their televisions), and the world (on their computers and iPods).

Tecker 911 is also great leadership experience for me. The show is filmed over the weekend in my living room. I coordinate all of the shoots, equipment, writing, and editing. Tecker 911 has three other regular contributors and has released 60 episodes.

The Weekly Spin

The Weekly Spin is a weekly podcast I am a contributor on. We discuss in-depth the top 3-5 stories in technology each week. In the last few episodes we reviewed recent gadgets from CES, talked about the unconsumer-friendly practices of the cell phone industry, and discussed Obama’s pick for attorney general’s ties to the RIAA. Episodes are available for free download from http://theweeklyspin.com

Theater

I have many years of theater experience, steaming mostly from my involvement with the Haverford Middle School Theater Co. and People’s Light and Theater Company, a professional theater, in Malvern, PA. In middle school I stage managed the 6th grade production of Wonderland! featuring 100 participants. In 2004, I acted at the National Constitution Center in one of the only 2 youth shows ever performed there. Backstage, I volunteered in the lighting department at People’s Light which requires that I effectively communicate with the people who put their lives on the line hanging from a narrow pipe 16 feet off of the ground.

High School

  • I was the CTO of the publications (Yearbook and Newspaper) office at my high school. This job requires that I analyze the requirements of the staff to maintain their computers and network.
  • I was a regular host and contributor to H-Vision, my school’s morning news program. As a senior member I have a deep relationship with the faculty as I give input in building this growing and developing program. Next year the program will be expanded into a class; I am assisting the district in building next year's program.
  • I was part of my school’s FIRST robotics team and was one of the few newbies who traveled to the competition in Annapolis, Maryland in 10th Grade. In 11th Grade, I remade the team's website (now defunct).
  • I was also involved with policies regarding technology at my school. I have a deep relationship with the director of technology and the principal of my school. We meet almost every month to discuss upcoming programs and policies. (Sample: Day in the Life)
  • I was the sole Student Representative for the School District of Haverford Township Strategic Planning Committee for Technology. The Committee is creating the new 5 year plan for technology use in a $78 million dollar school district. We are currently designing achievable goals for where the school district should be in 5 years. The process is made more difficult because the school faces limited funding for technology and almost no professional development time.

Reading/Watching/Listening List

  • MSNBC Homepage – My favorite general interest news site.
  • Time – I try to read it cover to cover every week.
  • Change.gov – Recent announcements from the Barack Obama Transition Team. I find it very interesting how Obama is using the internet to solicit ideas and to allow greater transparency than ever into how our government works.
  • NBC Nightly News – I try to watch it as often as possible for a concise run-down of what happened with the world that day.
  • The Daily Show – Most segments are spot on at discovering double speak and contradictions with our politicians in Washington.
  • ArsTechnica – The top technology news site. Accurate, technical, and un-biased.
  • Security Now – An in-depth technical podcast about security news and technologies like SSL, DNS, and AES.
  • Digg – The Digg community votes on the top technology stories from news sites and blogs.
  • WinSuperSite and The Windows Weekly podcast– a site reviewing the new announcements from Microsoft fairly and without FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).
  • CIO Magazine – Although I do not understand much in it, it gives a good preview of what corporations look for in technology and how they operate.
  • INC Magazine and Fast Company – Covers the innovative small businesses.
  • Finally, I comment on the most interesting items I find at http://delicious.com/theplaz


Submission History

Submitted for:


Category:College Applications

Mini Resume

See Mini Resume

Biography

October 2006

Michael Plasmeier, otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology. His website it http://theplaz.com Michael's passion is for website product design and project management. He is also an effective manager and business leader. His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera. Michael is also an "A" honors student. Although he is not the smartest in the school, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise. Michael remembers amazing his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills. He is 17 years old and lives with his parents in Havertown, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and attends Haverford High School as a senior.

Websites

Michael runs several websites and web services. On Facebook, he runs GridView, an application which lets users add all of their friend's profile pics onto their profiles. GridView has received light angel funding and Michael works with and manages overseas development teams. GridView currently has 700,000 users.

Michael also produces and regularly hosts, Tecker 911, a video podcast which brings technology into hands of normal people. Tecker 911 is also shown on Havertown's local public access Channel 11.

Michael developed SeniorQuoter, a free, open-source PHP application which allows high school yearbooks to collect senior quotes. In 11th Grade, Michael led a 5 person group study Dynamic Website Building Instruction and Practical Experience Group Study at Haverford High School where the group, under Michael's supervision, learned PHP and MySQL and built version 2 of SeniorQuoter.

Michael has also written many programs for the TI-83+ graphing calculator and a drop down menu for MediaWiki.

Education

Michael is a senior at Haverford High School. He is a regular anchor of H-Vision, the school’s morning news program. Michael supports education for all, through his website, ThePlaz.com, where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet. Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school. Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his freshman year, the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.

Michael is also the technology manager for the publications department. He also takes photos of many school events and publishes them on his flickr account.

Community Service

Michel believes that he can best server the global community by utilizing his special technology skills to make an impact on the greatest number of people. Michael's community service is highlighted by his involvement with SeniorQuoter and Tecker 911. Michael also has posted several thousand videos and photographs. Most of these photographs are freely available under the Creative Commons license. Most of Michael's school work and notes is also available under a similar license.

Business Experience

Michael is a proven business leader. Through GridView, Michael has gotten first-hand experience with running a business with a significant amount of revenue (for a high school student). Through this, Michael also has gotten experience with advertising networks, analytics, contracts, as well as negotiations over investment and equity.

Leadership

Through Tecker 911 and the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael has gained the ability to effectively lead and organize teams of 4-6 people. As the producer of Tecker 911, Michael is responsible for gathering ideas, scheduling shoots, acquiring and setting up equipment, as well as using his theater and public speaking experience to direct and coach the other anchors. For the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael directly project managed a team of 4 developers working on an open source PHP application.

For GridView, Michael meets regularly with his business partner to talk about and discuss ideas. Michael then writes the specifications to send to a development team overseas. Michael then manages the project to the completion of his exacting specifications.

Michael is regularly chosen to lead groups in school for school projects.

Acting

Michael also has some acting and technical theater experience. He has acted in three shows while he was at Haverford Middle School, stage managed a fourth, and was a casting consultant for a fifth. Through the People’s Light and Theater Company’s youth school, he has performed at the National Constitution Center in downtown Philadelphia.

Personal Info

Activities

Interests

  • Computers (GUI, coding, PHP, MySQL)
  • Technical Theater
  • Academics
  • Leadership

Favorite Music

  • Soundtracks Mostly
  • Some Pop
  • Some classical (while working)

Favorite TV Shows

Involved In

TV Mainstream

TV Niche

Computer

Favorite Movies

(Don't get to watch too many movies)

Favorite Books

Non-Fiction

Fiction

... and more

Favorite Quotes

See Quotes


Accounts on other sites

From my Governor's School Application

See Governor's School Application

GridView: Successful FB Application

As I detail on my resume, I run several web projects of varying types and of varying successfulness. GridView [6], my application for Facebook, is my most successful project. It has between 30,000 and 60,000 users a day. GridView is a great opportunity to get my work seen by thousands of people and also to learn what it is like to run a web business. I recently sold 25% of it to someone who became my partner in return for his advice (he is also the director of ad operations at a major social network) and a small investment. Together we think that GridView is worth more than $125,000. This is a great opportunity for me to receive some funding to cover the costs, learn how to run a business, and make a profit from my skills. However, I have learned a lot about building scalable websites and Linux server administration.

Tecker 911: Leadership in Community Television and Podcasting

Tecker 911 [7] shows my leadership skills. I am the producer and director of the show and organize everything from the people to the equipment to the editing. Each episode takes about 4 hours of my time in total. I organize all of the ideas, assign writers to brainstorm episodes, set up shoot times, as well as borrow the necessary equipment. During the shoot I host many of the episodes and direct the other hosts in their hosting style (as I point out in my resume, I have years of theater experience and also host my school’s morning news show). I also created all of the branding and editing standards for Tecker 911. This all pays off by helping to educate my community in something I know well, technology. Because the show is shown on our cable network, many people from my community recognize me from Tecker 911.

SeniorQuoter: Leadership in Free Software Coding and Project Management

I am also the project manager and leader for SeniorQuoter [8]. I founded SeniorQuoter to help my yearbook, but I chose to make the code freely available to everyone under the GPL license. As I detail on my resume, I also lead a group study in my school in PHP and MySQL. For the group study, I outlined the jobs and delegated them to my programming team I trained earlier in the quarter. I then supervised their work and helped them when they needed it. This was a great experience for me to work on my instructing and managing skills.

So Much More Than A Coder

Although I am the primary coder for my projects, I have also created all of the logos, branding, and user experience. I see myself more interested in human-computer interaction and project management than being a straight programmer. I mentioned that I do all of the branding and design for my sites. People have told me that superior design is the reason they use GridView over its competitors. As the director of my projects, I also think about the broader implications of technology. Technology is also at the point where it is turning around society. The worries about privacy on Facebook hit home for me, as I must protect the data of hundreds of thousands of users. My favorite topics in school revolve around human interaction, as the letter from my AP Economics and American Studies teacher indicates. (Also I did an extensive paper and video on Globalization)

In Summation

So, it is critical that I attend the Governor’s school because the topics being discussed are critical to me now. GridView’s hundreds of thousands of members demand not only server up-time, but a cohesive and engaging user experience which fits into the framework of Facebook. I am not only a programmer, but a designer, project manager, and on-air personality. I have extensive experience in managing teams of people, both for coding and television production. I know how powerful technology can be. Thus, I feel that I would be an asset to the Governor’s School in Technology.


My ThePlaz.com Userboxes

See also my wikipedia user boxes.
This user is a member of the MCM Club.
484
This user is a member of the Haverford High School Robotics Club!
This user goes to Haverford High School.
This user is an employee of Tecker.

Contact Me

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