UserPageallosaurus65

Hello,

I teach English literature in two Southern California universities, and enjoy working with technology. Comments on the wiki site I am working on would be appreciated:

http://ajdrake.com/wiki/tiki-index.php

Goals and design principles of the site:

1) To offer students the same functionality as the Blackboard portal offers (chat, forums, blog creation, and so forth).

2) To serve as a repository for both active courses and previous versions of courses I have offered. The web is something of a "dossier" site in this regard, and an archive as well.

3) The menus and overall look and feel of the site should be as straightforward as possible, with sufficient (but brief) explanations of how to use various features. When students first visit the site, they will see a left-side menu for each one of the courses I am currently offering (eg. "E212 Fall 2005," etc). They will register and eliminate any menus that don't apply to them. There is an "Archive Menu" menu that links to further resources — this is for anonymous users who might want to browse through previous offerings.

4) Certain kinds of documents (syllabus, study questions on assigned literary texts, etc.) are specific to each semester, so they will be listed in a few clearly labeled sections of the relevant course menu. Others (guides on literary periods, on writing well, etc.) are more general; the latter are databased for anyone to use, with appropriate links in the menus.