Setting up my first Drupal site
My name is Bryan Ollendyke and I am an Instructional Web Technologies Specialist working for Penn State. I have been a Drupal developer since 2005 and am a leader in the Drupal in Education sector of the larger Drupal Community. The focus of most of my work is Usability on the web and I have a considerable amount of experience in developing modules.
PHP, MySQL, Javascript / jQuery, and related AJAX technologies are what I eat sleep and breathe. I convert a lot of CSS based themes to Drupal and can tweak CSS well but I often times look good only because of the work of others who are far more graphically gifted then I. My department develops web courses for PSU and I’m often invovled in the discussions as the IT lead so I have some hands-on instructional design experience. Again, can’t often generate it but I can tweak it / strengthen it through the use of technology (more or less my position’s main responsibility).
This blog is part of my responsibilities of my job which is to be a leader when it comes to technology initatives. Our unit is far ahead of most because of the research and investment in technology that we’ve done since 2006. Many look to where we’re taking Drupal to see where it can take them (in education at least). I’m trying to get my fellow employees to blog because of the benefits that I know it brings and so hear I am; trying to put into practice that which I think is so critical in the “web 2.0″ {phrase way over used BTW} age.
If your an educator, technologist, or somewhere in between you’ll hopefully find what I talk about here interesting / useful. If you follow any of my work you know that I talk about all the technological developments within my unit and you might wonder why this blog is different from that one. The simple answer is that this has an injection of commentary and research. I’ll be reviewing different CMS platforms, talking about work related travel and relationships with others in this industry, reviewing books and modules and other Drupal related content. This sets it apart from my other project site because that is purely to discuss / report on the progress of my projects for Penn State.
It’s probably pretty obvious but just to get it in writing, this blog is not affiliated with Penn State in any way nor are the views that I express. This site will be a bit more crude then my past one (finally!) and I hope will have articles that you find interesting!
Bryan Ollendyke (btopro)
