And Then The Rest Of The World Gets In The Way

Well, this past week was the beginning of the semester here at the University of Georgia. And like at many institutions all across the United States and Canada, the first couple of weeks have been a little hectic. Through in a week-long visit from some family and you get two weeks without a single minute spent on my shingle.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks will prove a little more productive on this front. Hope to schedule som time with my design colleague, Peter Rich in the next week and maybe that will bring some activity to getting my new shingle ready for the rest of the world.

Tags: AECT 2006, AECT, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education

Style

What colour do you want them there shingles to be?

That's the dilemma that is facing me now - an issue of style. What do I want my professional homepage to look like?

I'll be honest, I like the top and background of one of my blogs - Virtual High School Meanderings. I like how the lighthouse on the side kind of blends into the background (particularly in the bottom righthand corner of the image). I like the fact that it is white or a very light colour, with a crisp and clean design.

It would be nice if there was a beam of light coming from the lighthouse, where I could add my name. I've been playing in Fireworks for the past hour, trying out things and this is the cloest I could get:

It's not bad for an amateur, which is really what I am when it comes to graphical design and image manipulation, but it doesn't have the same kind of professional look at the one on my blog does.

In terms of content, I like the way that my colleague Drew Polly has designed his site - focusing upon the things that are important in academia. I think if I had categories across the top, and I do like that top layout, I'd use:

Home / CV / Biography/ Teaching / Research / Service

Then on each page I'd have two bars, the one you see above and a page specific bar. For example, the one under Biography would read:

Professional / Personal / Blogs

The one under Teaching would read:

K-12 / Instructional Technology / Social Studies Education

The one under Research would read:

Research Projects / Development Projects / Evaluation Projects / Publications / Presentations / Funding

The one under service would read:

Departmental / College-University / Professional / Community

I think it would make a nice layout, at least in terms of content. I need to send some more like with a fellow student, Peter Rich, to figure out how to do some of the Firworks stuff (and to get some better designs for overall layout). This is the difficult part of the task. Once I have something I like, copying and pasting from the current content and updating what has become out of date is easy enough.

Tags: AECT 2006, AECT, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education

Starting This Journey

Okay, I think I'm the person that Nate (see Getting Started) is referring to as already having started - as I go have a registered domain and existing blog.

At present, I have my own non-institutional website at http://www.michaelbarbour.com. I also regularly maintain three different blogs:

• my research blog - Virtual High School Meanderings
• my academic/profesisonal blog - Breaking into the Academy
• my personal blog - Rock Ruminations

Now, getting my own domain was actually an interesting process. Last summer I was posting a series on web presence (see Creating your web presence and Be careful about your web presence) to my academic/profesisonal blog when I got this message in my inbox:

Subject: new web site disclaimer policy
TO: UGA faculty, staff and students
RE: New policy requiring disclaimer statement on Web pages
____________________________________________________
On April 21, 2005, the University Cabinet adopted a new policy requiring a disclaimer be placed on all Web pages residing on the UGA Web server, or that otherwise explicitly or implicitly indicate an affiliation with the University of Georgia. Please note that pages that provide OFFICIAL information on behalf of the University are NOT required to affix the disclaimer. The policy, including the specific language of the disclaimer and detailed information regarding the requirement, may be viewed at

http://www.eits.uga.edu/webhelp/wsdpolf.pdf

Please review this policy to determine its applicability to any Web site under your control. This particularly applies to any personal sites of students, faculty and staff, as well as those of student organizations. Please note that non-compliant sites are subject to removal from the UGA Web site. We trust that the policy and explanatory document at the link above will answer your questions. Additional questions may be addressed to wsdp@uga.edu.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

This prompted me to write Disclaimers on your web presence and to get my own non-institutional server, which was finally set up at the end of June 2005 (see My new web presence). Th procss itself was relatively simple. I asked two friends that had their own domains for their opinions, and I was recommended the Canadian company Doteasy by my American friend and the American company GoDaddy by my Canadian friend (funny how that worked out). I selected Doteasy because if you registered a domain with them your web hosting was free if your website was less than 100MB. If you recommended them to a friend, that increased to 200MB (which I did when I registered a domain for my wife - see http://www.lisabarbour.com). The fact that I got in during a special where I was able to register my domain for $4.95 didn't hurt either.

So, it is a basic website and has served its purpose for the past year and a bit. But now I am going up on the job market again and I think that I need a more professional presence. So my main personal goal during this Blog Track is to give my shingle that professional and polished look prior to arriving in Dallas in October won't you join me on this journey?

Tags: AECT 2006, AECT, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education