Electronic project update

Well, I've had alot of postings concerning my on-site days. Mostly because they are the real source of information in my practicum. I always find it harder to talk about my own work on the reverse side. This post is an attempt to rectify that particular situation.

The biggest news is that we have decided to switch platforms from Zoho to Google. There were several reasons behind it. The first and foremost, in my opinion, is the market share and knowledge that users already have about many google applications. People are just more familiar with them, than with a smaller Web 2.0 application.

The second was that our first plan, the creation of the information package in Zoho notebook, did not work as well as we had hoped. Luckily, I wasn't too far into the project, though between playing with the software, and creating a bare bones set of pages that were essentially 8 different template experiments, I had about 15-18 hours in the project. Not a tremendous amount, but when the entire practicum in 90, it put quite a dent in the time alloted. Luckily, much of the information that I had generated should transfer, saving time on the back end.

The link for the now abandoned page is at: http://notebook.zoho.com/nb/public/mstraatm/book/116167000000004339

I'll leave that up, until folks get a chance to look at it. Certainly, not all the information created is there, in fact, most of it isn't, rather that page was a series of questions and attempts at design that I wanted feedback on, or was experimenting with; hence the bare-bones look.

I've been learning alot about Web 2.0 applications; and I routinely return to the free isn't necessarily better. I have to applaud these software developers, though. Alot of work and time go into these projects that are then turned out to the general public with no expectation of direct compensation (how they are rewarded is a different topic). When the time arrives that these applications are as powerful and as detailed as the commercial vendors, however, I wonder how the commercial vendors will be able to maintain any sort of market share.

I was able to see and play with the heart of what is behind the Web 2.o experience, however. When it became obvious that I was not able to make the Zoho notebook application do what we wanted, I was able to share the documents with my advisors on this project, Marty and Marie, and then we were able to Skype with each other while both looking at and manipulating the document. That is what I really feel that Web 2.0 is about, the interactive portion, and it is exciting to be able to use them in this fashion.

One of the most substantial drawbacks for using the Zoho Notebook application actually was this interactivity, however. It works great for being able to collaboratively discuss the project and data, look at images, and in general make design decisions; however, this collaboration is unnecessary and potentially distracting in a tutorial sort of format. Other smaller design issues, such as backgrounds and similar publishing type details, were the final nail in the coffin so to speak.

I think that the slideshow/powerpoint format for the tutorials will be more useful for the state purpose of this project. I can still see a use for the collaborative aspects in design, as well as if the project develops beyond the boundaries that we currently have; but for now, something more static when it is presented the the audience is called for.

That being said, the previous reasons Google won out, made this a logical point to jump applications if we are essentially starting over anyway.

So....the new draft is due July 8 (one day before my next site visit on July 9). Instead of playing with a number of different templates such as the Zoho, I've been busy trying to create just one, to get a feel for what we come across when we go deeper. Essentially, the first attempt was a broad sweep, and we found some problems, this time, we'll see what we can find otherwise.

So far it is going ok, but I'm only about 5 hours into it. So much of the initial time investment, is just learning the way around the software. This blog is a good break from just that.