Let me start by stating the obvious: Designing a website is not small task. Fortunately, my cohort members and I have been working with Weebly all year long within our different courses. Maintaining our blogs via Weebly has provided us with valuable and necessary practice. It is fair to say that I would be overwhelmed if not for the fact that I have become familiar with the basics of weebly, from inserting texts to uploading images and videos. Perhaps the greatest challenge of creating my capstone is balancing creative limitations of weebly against the necessary Touro criteria. One key aspect of creating my capstone is keeping my audience in mind. My intended audience is primarily other educators. As a teacher myself, I know that when it comes to conducting the type of research that would lead me to such a site, I am typically looking for resources that are easy to integrate into my own lessons. With that in mind, I have made it a goal to provide a large range of helpful resources and as well as ideas and examples of how to implement them. At the very least I would be happy to know I have simply provided other teachers with engaging resources for their students. Another aspect to consider is the importance of my content. As I create my capstone, I constantly have to choose between rifling through my old blogs or writing fresh words. Then I also have to worry about writing too much and over explaining which means running the risk of losing my audience’s interest. Meanwhile, if I am too brief and write too little my work may appear shallow and uninformative. Last but not least, I have to give careful consideration to the visual appeal of my capstone. Especially considering how much I have learned about the color and design. There is a lot to consider aesthetically. One decision I am actually confident about is my choice to consistently use purple to accent certain texts throughout my site. I wanted to match the purple from my logo and use it throughout the pages as a way to create uniformity. I do however struggle with choosing my images and icons. For one thing they must be stock images and not copyright or pay to use. But more importantly I want each aspect of my sight to reflect my personal style as much as professionally possible. All in all, I am more proud of the simple fact that I have come this far and learned as much as I have. Creating a website may not be small task but fortunately I have spent the last year preparing for this. To quote my mentor teacher, “Now is the time when the rubber meets the road.”
2 Comments
dan
12/6/2017 09:46:29 pm
Jimmy
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Patrick
12/7/2017 11:11:11 am
I definitely sympathize with your struggles synthesizing your old blogs into your new website. More often than not, I found myself re-writing content from old blogs to match the way my question and target audience has evolved over time. It is definitely a challenging balancing act. I have so much desire to just write a little narrative for my pages. I think when we are passionate about a project, it is hard to be brief about it. We also have to recognize that our audiences have not spent the last year researching and working with these topics like we have. It's kind of like discussing your favorite book series. You can go into so much detail and nuance with other fans of the books and debate fan theories. Someone who isn't as invested in the book won't care about the precise phrasing that one character used on pg 324. We do risk losing our audience if we are not concise and informative.
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