Working on my final project last night was an effort in frustration. I have an idea of where I want the project to go, but I don’t really know which platform is best for it. I started out working on the site Yola, which provides free websites and building tools. Once I began trying to add content, I realized it wasn’t going to work out. The first problem is that it doesn’t come with any free, stock images. This isn’t really an issue once a site has been up and running for a while. I could go out and take my own pictures to use, or spend some time browsing the creative commons sites for something appropriate, but at this point I just want to fill in the spaces to get a feel for design and layout. More importantly, it really didn’t offer any reasonable way to turn the site into a collaborative environment, which is important to the final goals. I spent a few hours setting up a blog on Blogger instead. It’s less polished-looking, but at least I can accept comments on the posts.
I’ve also been considering how I’m going to share my site and get the collaborative aspect rolling in the future. I noticed that on our district Hub, the section for my school’s science department is empty, and nothing exists on the Yammer site for open educational resources. I think these may be good platforms for opening up the conversation with teachers, get them to visit my website, and then collaborate on future steps.