In this Cycle we introduce our first Content Manager (CMS). It will take you about this long to become familiar with it. There are also two sets of readings and a Peer Review from last cycle. To get the most out of the experience, it is recommended you do the readings in order and do the Peer Reviews before you spend too much time on the content management system assignment:
- You have been randomly assigned four peer reviews to complete from the Web Standards reflection from last cycle. To find your assigned list, go back to last cycle’s drop box, and click the Peer review Link to the far right side of the screen. Take a look/listen (some offered audio responses) at what they have said and comment on their input. Hopefully, it will help round out your understanding of this set of readings.
- Review the following two lessons on Web site design:
When finished, take a look at the five Web sites and post in Canvas a short review of each one outlining what you think is good (if anything) and poor (if anything) about the design/look and feel/navigation of that site. The purpose of this activity is to make sure you have internalized some of the ideas put forth in the lessons and are beginning to develop a visual ‘eye’ for good Web site design.
- Next, we are looking at Content Management Systems (CMS). There are several good ones to pick from, the major ones being Alfresco, WordPress; Drupal; and Joomla!. I like the last three three actually (Alfresco is losing market share and is too cumbersome to install, IMHO). I am more experienced in WordPress, as I made the choice early on to become well versed in it use.To provide you a little more insight as to the differences and specifications, I offer this comparison among Joomla!, Drupal, and Alfresco that was done a while ago by one of my former students. It is a bit dated (and actually was done without input about WordPress, which was in its infancy at that time) but hopefully, will give you some things to think about.
In this course we only have time to play with two of them. I picked WordPress and Drupal based on input from current and former students. I am more familiar with the former but have had some experience with Drupal. All I can tell you is that all three have their passionate proponents. I am allowing you to take a look at least two of them and decide on your own. For this cycle you need to pick one and spend the next three weeks learning about it. Next cycle, you will have the opportunity to review the other one. For your final project you will need to pick pick one and use it. The idea is that you use these next six weeks doing a preliminary review of both, select one, and to get to know the product better.
The learning curve to understand the backbone (i.e., Dashboard) can take a while and may seem overwhelming at first. But the ease of implementation of subsequent new pages and sites is what will make it all worthwhile. Take your time and work at it a little bit at a time. Whatever you do, do not wait until the last minute. The intent is that you will have enough time to attempt some type of conversion of content and in order to figure out the major differences between the two products.
THE DELIVERABLE IN EACH OF THE NEXT TWO CYCLES IS TO PICK EITHER DRUPAL OR WORDPRESS (SEE THE TUTORIALS BELOW), CREATE A WEBSITE FOR PRACTICE, THEN POST IN THE DROPBOX A LINK TO THE PRACTICE SITE THAT YOU DEVELOP.. You MAY (but are not required to) use the newsletter you created in the last cycle so as to compare the interfaces.
Here are the tutorials for the two CMS options:
You will use one of the CMS for your final project. Below is a reminder as to what the final project is all about: