Once a webmaster…..always a webmaster
I had a real thorn in my side in my previous job. The campus website. It took up a lot of my time not only with all the updates; but with my need to constantly want to make it more streamlined. I wanted it to be easy to access and I was constantly working on it.
I moved to this new job with thoughts of grandeur. I wanted to break away from working HTML and CSS. I thought I might be able to give some direction to the new website and help them find a company to run it. I did that. But now….I am spending my days migrating the old website to the new one.
The district got rid of their old Webmaster and did not keep the job open. So….I am once again regulated to being the webmaster.
It isn’t such a bad job but it is a tedious job. It is a desk job – almost clerical to migrate everything over. And people who don’t have any experience in web design have no idea how much time the process takes. Copy and paste is their idea of web migration. They don’t know that it isn’t that easy. There are formats. There is code. There are steps and procedures for every piece of each site.
For future planning, I am deleting all references to web design from my resume and profiles. I won’t even mention that I taught it, either. I taught a great program to ninth graders several years ago. It was even for industry-standard certification.
I enjoyed that aspect of it. Teaching someone else to design and implement a real business model of success. Teaching students to get certified to design a website before a certification to drive in the state of Texas. Teaching design, color strategy, font concepts, etc. That was exciting web design times.
But now….it’s an albatross around my neck. I thought I would become the CTO here and put the web design business behind me.
I know all tech directors have something that they are bound to do but don’t feel the passion for it. This is probably the first in a series of such items. I really want to get out of web design though only because it removes me from providing training and instruction. It is really sit and do. I don’t like that. I want to stand, speak, share, instruct, learn, give, and receive with a group of learners. The more I sit at a desk, the more frustrated I get. I just want to be able to teach.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Couldn’t you have setup a Moodle questionnaire and had staff fill in the information, then reflect the results?
January 29th, 2009 at 12:36 am
We aren’t Moodling here. I have only been here six months so far. It isn’t beyond our scope to Moodle. It just isn’t happening yet.
Plus, I don’t think 1/3 of the staff would do an online questionnaire just yet.
Baby steps.
A good idea but Kerrville isn’t ready for it yet. I believe two of my techs are going to Moodle sessions to get some info. at TCEA. I admit it is a weakness of mine as well. I want to go there but it’s just another web (backend) resource that I would have to learn and admit to knowing. I want to get out of the backend side of web design and service. It isn’t enjoyable to me anymore.