I downloaded a few more components for the site today. I loaded all of my snow snakes photos into a slideshow component, set up a blogging component, and set up the videos that I have of snow snakes into a video component. The media components both work quite well, but I have yet to figure out the Mamblog component, but it should give the site a place where registered members can blog about their experiences. I also reloaded the Xplorer component because the old one never worked for me. I could see using this FTP tool to upload some HTML and make our site even more pleasing to the eye.
Now is the time for my team to start applying their stuff onto the site: Photos, videos, lessons, FAQS, A-Z, links, and whatever goes into the "Snake Zone" should be applied to the site. Most of these can be done from the front end (except the photos which need to be loaded through the Component menu item called "Xtreme"). Things are progressing nicely and I can't wait to see where this is going to go now.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
QTVR and Audacity
I have been going back and forth on Panorama Factory trying to save a QTVR image. I can see the image all ready to go on my machine but when I begin to save it (which takes a long time) it comes right to the end and notifies me that I am out of memory and the application closes. I am not sure where to go from here. I went through my machine and cleaned it up as best I could to open up memory. I also attempted to use a USB drive to no avail. I may revisit this a little bit later. I am very interested in the image not only for the class assignment but also for personal. Any thoughts on a solution would be appreciated.
I also downloaded audacity. I thought that for one of our media pieces I could read an Ojibwa legend or two and we could post this on our site.
For a video addition I am working on getting a clip of some snow snakery up at White Earth. The clip is part of a greater project video. I will keep you posted. All of the aforementioned will surely need some technical assistance with Joomla. Until next time................
I also downloaded audacity. I thought that for one of our media pieces I could read an Ojibwa legend or two and we could post this on our site.
For a video addition I am working on getting a clip of some snow snakery up at White Earth. The clip is part of a greater project video. I will keep you posted. All of the aforementioned will surely need some technical assistance with Joomla. Until next time................
Friday, March 14, 2008
Returning to Desgin
After an evening of pure frustration (see previous post), I returned to Joomla. Luckily for my cohorts in this Snow Snakes adventure, I am not one to take defeat and wanted immediate retribution on this evil CMS. This time I avoided the html and page style procedures in favor of the design of the site. I found that this was much more satisfying in many aspects, yet frustrating as hell on other tasks.
My successes included getting the Chat and Forum components to launch (see two posts ago) and I switched the Links menu item to a "Content" sub-menu item. These tasks were successfully completed through manipulation of miles of checklists and drop-down menus within each Content item. I discovered that the Components needed to also be listed among the Content to be included in the lists that appear when the main menu items are pressed. I completed this feature for the "Content" button on the main menu.
My failures included not being able to duplicate the same procedure, as described above for the "Content" button, for the "Collaboration" button. I'm not sure why I couldn't do the same for this button, but I either lost some path in the procedure previously used or this is its own dilemma totally disjoint from the other success. I'm going away for the weekend and when I return on Sunday, I'll attempt to make this all good. My goal is to get everything on the site to a point where people can start adding the actual content. I'm fearful of returning back to the design side of the site, but, knowing my tenacity, I'll be jumping back into that horrid pool of discontent soon as well.
My successes included getting the Chat and Forum components to launch (see two posts ago) and I switched the Links menu item to a "Content" sub-menu item. These tasks were successfully completed through manipulation of miles of checklists and drop-down menus within each Content item. I discovered that the Components needed to also be listed among the Content to be included in the lists that appear when the main menu items are pressed. I completed this feature for the "Content" button on the main menu.
My failures included not being able to duplicate the same procedure, as described above for the "Content" button, for the "Collaboration" button. I'm not sure why I couldn't do the same for this button, but I either lost some path in the procedure previously used or this is its own dilemma totally disjoint from the other success. I'm going away for the weekend and when I return on Sunday, I'll attempt to make this all good. My goal is to get everything on the site to a point where people can start adding the actual content. I'm fearful of returning back to the design side of the site, but, knowing my tenacity, I'll be jumping back into that horrid pool of discontent soon as well.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
I just don't get it.
Last night I ventured into Joomla land, attempting to make our page prettier with HTML. I've used HTML before and it was pretty straight forward code and the preview of the updated front page looked great. The problem came when I actually viewed the results of my wokr and found nothing has changed. For some reason, nothing was changed on the page. After going back and forth from editor to viewing the site about a dozen times, I ave up and started a new front page from a different link in the menu. Same thing. Looks great in the preview, but now there's nothing on the front page. WHEN WILL JOOMLA RETURN ALL OF THESE HOURS IT IS STEALING FROM ME! I'll try again today. I'm just glad that Joomla isn't some kind of tangible item that I could smash against a wall or there would be some cleaning to do.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Components
Today I learned how to upload and install components. I uploaded a chatroom and a forum discussion tool. It was really a pretty simple procedure. Find these components on the web (I Googled "Joomla" and there were many links for these types of sites containing components). These components download to your computer in a .zip format. Next, go to the installer and choose the component installer and upload the .zip file from your computer. The Joomla site will do the rest. Now my next goal is to learn how to apply these components to our page. If we're going to use an online expert chat, this will come in handy. Another problem I am having is that the chatroom component that I down loaded is in French, so I'll probably trash it and get a different chat component (there were many on the afore mentioned site, I just chose the highest rated one).
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Progress
We had a fruitful meeting in lieu of class Tuesday night. I will try and capture what we accomplished to follow. We discussed the dynamic or our Snow Snake idea/model with the PolarHusky model. This led to looking closely at some of the components of the PolarHusky curriculum and thinking and discussing what that might look like for our purposes. The result was the game plan of preparing a draft "Program Overview" and "Alert" to set the stage. We also plan on creating lesson plans using the PolarHusky template, each group member initially being responsible for one lesson in their chosen content area.
This led to discussions about AL ingredients that should be considered. Jim emailed us a list that we worked from and the results follow:
Landing page - This will come later as our Joomla page evolves.
Trail Reports - There are a couple AL pieces that we are not sure how to integrate or address because of the nature of our project. We don't have a third party team out in the field so a continuous trail report poses a problem. We left this with a question mark for now.
Scrapbook - In the short term we thought we could upload some existing pictures of snow snakes from the project I am working on with the White Earth schools. We could also find pertinent Ojibwe legends and read them aloud posting the audio file on Joomla for each story.
Blog updates - This component we see as really taking off when and if our AL project takes flight. We envision for our four week project we would identify one class per week that would be our showcase class and they would post to the blog daily about there progress.
Our Hook - The Snow Snake game in general and the status of students as contributors to the AL collaborative environment.
Collaborative Opp. - Each class would post photos and video of progress through the snow snake project.
Support content - ?
Team Communication - Again, not sure what this would look like since we don't have an expedition team in the field. So for now N/A.
Q and A - Structurally in Joomla we would have a place for questions and then answers can be given individually or put into our FAQ section
A few of the components we were thinking about putting into an "assistance hub" section. Such as the Q and A, Tech Support, Pedagogical assistance, help, etc. We would streamline this to the needs of our users.
Quiz - We thought this would develop later
Meet the Team - N/A
Expert Chat - This would occur during the project. Our ideas would be for Tribal Elder, Content Specialists and other Tribal figureheads to participate. We are thinking 4 chats total, one per week.
Spatial Rep. - Using Google Maps we thought that those participating school could place a marker on there geographical location. Similar (same) to how PolarHusky does it.
Online game - not sure what this would look like. Talked about a couple of ideas but maybe lower on the priority list, Same with "A to Z" as far as priority goes.
Curr. Access - did not think this was necessary
Once we get some of the curricular pieces together we feel like this will drive the Joomla development. We were all encouraged by the game plan and progress. Until next time! B
This led to discussions about AL ingredients that should be considered. Jim emailed us a list that we worked from and the results follow:
Landing page - This will come later as our Joomla page evolves.
Trail Reports - There are a couple AL pieces that we are not sure how to integrate or address because of the nature of our project. We don't have a third party team out in the field so a continuous trail report poses a problem. We left this with a question mark for now.
Scrapbook - In the short term we thought we could upload some existing pictures of snow snakes from the project I am working on with the White Earth schools. We could also find pertinent Ojibwe legends and read them aloud posting the audio file on Joomla for each story.
Blog updates - This component we see as really taking off when and if our AL project takes flight. We envision for our four week project we would identify one class per week that would be our showcase class and they would post to the blog daily about there progress.
Our Hook - The Snow Snake game in general and the status of students as contributors to the AL collaborative environment.
Collaborative Opp. - Each class would post photos and video of progress through the snow snake project.
Support content - ?
Team Communication - Again, not sure what this would look like since we don't have an expedition team in the field. So for now N/A.
Q and A - Structurally in Joomla we would have a place for questions and then answers can be given individually or put into our FAQ section
A few of the components we were thinking about putting into an "assistance hub" section. Such as the Q and A, Tech Support, Pedagogical assistance, help, etc. We would streamline this to the needs of our users.
Quiz - We thought this would develop later
Meet the Team - N/A
Expert Chat - This would occur during the project. Our ideas would be for Tribal Elder, Content Specialists and other Tribal figureheads to participate. We are thinking 4 chats total, one per week.
Spatial Rep. - Using Google Maps we thought that those participating school could place a marker on there geographical location. Similar (same) to how PolarHusky does it.
Online game - not sure what this would look like. Talked about a couple of ideas but maybe lower on the priority list, Same with "A to Z" as far as priority goes.
Curr. Access - did not think this was necessary
Once we get some of the curricular pieces together we feel like this will drive the Joomla development. We were all encouraged by the game plan and progress. Until next time! B
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Grrr
This program drives me nuts! I can't figure out the hierarchy they're got going on. I keep thinking I am putting categories (or sections...not really sure) in the right spots, but apparently they don't work the way I want them too. Please take a look at it and tell me how you'd like it to be different and then Jim will take care of that. :-) Kidding. Sort of.
Jim, we decided a lot this afternoon and Brant is going to recap for us, but for next week please be thinking of some lesson ideas for the following areas: History/geography/culture; math; science (climate and physics, etc); art; construction; technique. We're going to decide on them and then each take one or two to write up.
Allison
Jim, we decided a lot this afternoon and Brant is going to recap for us, but for next week please be thinking of some lesson ideas for the following areas: History/geography/culture; math; science (climate and physics, etc); art; construction; technique. We're going to decide on them and then each take one or two to write up.
Allison
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Another Joomla Experience
Yesterday (3/1/08), I had quite a day with Joomla. I wanted to get a front page up on the site and ended up screwing up the whole site. I went directly into the HTML of the template and found the main frame and replaced it with a front page. This was obviously a mistake since every link was then sending me to the same frame with my new front page. Since I was unaware of how to get the site to what I wanted, I thought that it would best to return the page to it's original state, but alas, I had erased all of that code and had no idea how to repair it. After much grief and many experiments, my solution was to download the template that was used from its original source and extract the missing code and pasting it back into the template we are currently using. This took me hours to do and the results were that the site was back to its original state, but in the process of trying to find solutions to my dilemma, I learned so much more about Joomla and it's functions. So in retrospect, I would warn: Do not mess with the html code for the template! But I would also encourage everyone to dive in and make mistakes because you will learn a great deal about Joomla that way.
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