My dear readers,

Website Reflection

Making a website, like so much of ENG 701, was a new experience for me. I’ve not been asked to build a site before. It was frustrating to say the least. But nothing good ever came easy. At first, I tried checking every free hosting service I could think of, including 50webs. Unfortunately, both my home and office computers are dinosaurs that can hardly run anything. So I ended up making my site through UNLV OIT.

I am glad for what I’ve learned. At least I now know how to edit pages in MS Word. Also, I’ve learned that you have to edit and link every little individual page. That makes sense, it just was irritating because I more than once forgot to make those said links, thereby driving myself loony. I was glad to know that at least I already knew how to change the background colors. Though I ultimately went with grey to be not so tacky.

The text was easy enough to do through MS Word, since I use Word every day just about. I was glad I could cut and paste the text I had already made previously. Call me nuts but to me the text seems to me the point of a site. I mean pictures are nice but my text is what I wanted to convey.
As far as the text I wrote, I started off with information about me including my goals and research interests. I love poetry and want to teach it someday. I also have a page detailing my albeit limited teaching experience. I wish I really could find a way to show through the website how much I love my job. My Interests page combines with my Teaching page to detail what I want to do academically in the future. Also, I posted my admittedly slim Vita, which I will strive to expand in the future.

Anyway, I enjoyed making the site. This was my first stab at a site. This activity showed me how complicated web design can be. I never would have thought that parts of a site did not kind of “hook” together automatically. Hopefully, I’ll remember for next time. I now understand how important the internet is for self promotion and relaying information both about me and the world at large.
I think Sullivan’s “Taking Control of the Page: Electronic Writing and Word Publishing.” Is relevant to what I did due to the increasing use of web based methods for teaching. I also think that McGee’s article “The Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisible Grammarian” was also useful since I used MS Word to help with the site. I can see that MS Word’s grammar checker can potentially affect the way things are phrased on a site made with Word.

Freire tells us that we as educators make ideological choices in everything we do. That makes me stop and consider what am I saying ideologically through my new site without realizing it? I certainly hope I haven’t made myself seem anti-visual by not having pictures on my site. I love pictures. I just did not want to stick pictures on there just to have pictures. Every part of a site should serve a purpose.

Thank you so much for your time,

James Altman