Week+Three+5365


 * Producing and Managing Content**

I have been assigned the task of updating our current program website. The web pages were created prior to my employment here using Front Page, a program with which I am very unfamiliar and is very time consuming to learn. Watching the Drupal video allowed me to see the how easy it would be for me to create web pages that would allow us to offer many new features that would help me design web pages that are much more attractive and interactive. In another video entitled “What is Drupal?” the question was answered with “It’s the power to connect”. This is something that is extremely important when you are working with students in higher education.

Currently, we are using Blogger for our blog site, which allows multiple users to have access to the single blog. Drupal would allow us to create multiple blogs with multiple users with the added possibility of involving more students in the process. Since our program is connected to Lamar University, we are bound by the Lamar Web policy to certain guidelines which includes using their logos and headers. According to the Drupal website, “both the content and the presentation can be individualized based on user-defined preferences” which is a plus for meeting our needs.

Drupal will allow us to create collaborative environments, discussion forums, newsletters, and picture galleries. Some key features that attracted me to use Drupal are the online help, and search and poll modules. The fact that Drupal can be administered entirely using a web browser, making it possible to access it from around the world without requiring additional software to be installed on your computer is also a tremendous advantage. According to the “What is Drupal?” video, it is configurable, powerful, flexible, reliable, and secure, all qualities that would be valuable to our program.

About the Drupal Project at Drupal.org. Retrieved on June 9, 2010 from @http://drupal.org/features

“The fact that Drupal can be administered entirely using a web browser, making it possible to access it from around the world without requiring additional software to be installed on your computer is also a tremendous advantage.” When I wrote this statement on my previous post, I interpreted that to mean that there would be nothing to download and everything would be managed from the web. After I began to investigate using Drupal further to create our website, I discovered there is a process which involves downloading and extracting the Drupal files, creating a configuration file and database, and running an installation script. I also discovered that the university does not encourage using a content management system as opposed to web design software. Bottom line is … it is not as simple and easy as the video makes it appear to look.

The Open Source movement allows software to be customizable, which promotes the production of higher quality programs as well as working cooperatively with others to improve open source technologies. A few examples of software that has come out of the Open Source Movement are Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Mozilla. I think that one of the relevant factors about the Open Source Movement in K-12 education is the fact that students and educators will be exposed to and have opportunities to use, study, change, and continually improve upon the Web 2.0 tools that they are using today.


 * Week 3 Assignment - Content Management**



[|Web Content Inventory]

[|Memo to NewSchoolSpace]