Drooooopal

I have the Droooopal blues today. Drupal is the content management platform that the CWRL uses for instructor web pages. Last year, I built my instructor web page using this tool without too much hassle. Granted, my instructor page is not particularly sophisticated, but I maintained it pretty well myself for the past yearr. Today, I began work on a locus page, which is for professionalization purposes. I figured that constructing a locus page would be an effective way to relearn the platform and to increase my skills. After about 5 minutes, my head was spinning. Here is why, I think.

First, when I am trying to figure out a new technology, I often don't have a clear, concrete goal in mind. So, for example, my goal is to construct this web page, and I start this project without a concrete image in my head of what it might look like. To alleviate this situation, I turn to colleagues' pages. Though this move is a good idea in theory, it dwindles into counter-productivity pretty quickly because I start to think about how great other folks' sites look without a sense of what I want. It is like reading for research without knowing one's research question. Anyhow, I get so easily distracted by others' bells and whistles that I forget why I am looking at these various pages.

The other reason that I failed to have a productive learning experience this morning and perhaps more generally with technology is that I don't know where to turn for help. Or, rather, I know too many places to turn for help, but I don't know which is the best place in a given situation. The options that spring to mind in no particular order include: the Drupal website, the cwrl website, my friend JJB who has helped me with Drupal before, a coworker at the CWRL, and some book on Drupal that I imagine is in the CWRL library.

Like most tyros, I tend toward human helpers, so I ended up emailing a colleague at work, and we are going to have a meeting next week. The only other proactive thing that I could think to do was to make a list of what I would like to see on my web page. I made a list of links, but I still have not picked any pictures, a point that may lead to my final observation about my failure today. I have no idea how to be clever when I am staring at a computer-related problem. I have noticed that when I am crafting, the small victories that come with figuring out a problem propel me to keep working and to meet the next challenges that a given project presents me with. I am far too easily disheartened when it comes to technology because I seldom, if ever, produce those encouraging boosts for myself. Oh, drooooooooooopal!