HTML and CSS

The real coding part of web development is something that I have neglected. I have always relied on Macromedia Contribute to help me with my page design. That is the easy way out and doesn't allow you to do as many neat things as hands-on coding does, so I would like to learn HTML in conjunction with CSS for the "Technical Professional Development" part of the course. I will be posting my learning contract for this tomorrow.

In need of some RSS/XML help...

At work on Friday, I set up a website that I am using as sort of my web design playground/sandbox. It is where I will be trying my new design skills as I learn them. I was setting up an RSS feed on this website to see if I could do it, and I was able to get the channel set up and subscribed to the feed using my bloglines account. But every time I tried to set up an item on the XML document, it wouldn't show up in the bloglines account while it did update within the code on the XML document. Has anyone tried this before, and if so, could I send you my code to see what I am doing wrong? I spent about four hours on Friday on this, and by the end of the day, I was ready to throw my computer out the window. Thanks for any and all help! :)

Where I want to be in the next few years...

For those of you who don't know me, I am very much a planner. I live by task lists, and I am lost if I don't have them. So for our "Progress Toward Your Degree" assignment last week, I focused on what I needed to do to become a tenured professor. I know I want to teach in higher education because I have had experience in that, both as an english instructor at Kansas State University and currently as a librarian here at UF. These experiences have shown me how rewarding it is to convey a message to students and see the light bulb turn on above their heads. I enjoy being witness to and facilitator of these "AHA" moments.

So below is a list of things I need to do to get to where I want to be:

1. Join AECT this semester - attend and present at meeting in 2007
2. Read, read, and read some more to stay up with what is going on in IDT and to pinpoint my niche
3. Pursue meaningful projects at work that will enhance what I am learning in classes
4. Collaborate with other students and faculty in the college in order to attain grants for research and publish papers
5. Set up a week-per-week learn & apply schedule that will help me to learn technology used in IDT

Do politics get in the way?

I just finished reading the Liu et. al. article "Challenges of Being an Instructional Designer for New Media Development: A View from the Practitioners." I really appreciated the information put forth in this study, but I would like to talk about another area that could be a challenge in certain environments, something that I wish this article would have delved into.

When you take a position as an instructional designer, do you have free reign to do as you please design-wise, or are you held back by politics? By "politics" I mean people who are in positions higher than you who seem to be unwilling to change and allow for new and fresh ideas? As an instructional designer, you are schooled to be creative and innovative, to be at the cutting edge of technological advances, but when you reach your career destinations, do politics get in the way and hold you back? Does anyone here have any experience with this?

Wikipedia - What do you think?

During class last week, we discussed Wikipedia a little bit. There seems to be some debate as to whether or not Wikipedia is an authoritative source of information. In the library world, most agree that Wikipedia is not the best place to go for information. What do you think?