I had looked at setting up my own Drupal a littlw while back but was intimidated by the installation process. I heard about fantastico on an edtechtalk podcat (can't remember which one), checked it out in my cpanel and had drupal installed in about 2 minutes. It took me to the newly created site and I got started. I also got started here and hope to gain some pointers as I go.

I have just downloaded all the live sessions to start listenign to and hope to get onto the live sessions each week although I am at work and it might be a bit tricky getting the time. I am not sure how I should go about this academy but here goes.

Current Situation

I have now installed and spent about 10 hours on my first Drupal site. The address is http://www.robonline.id.au/drupal. I have locked it off as it will be for students at my college and we don't want to let non students in but the detials are:

user - test

pw - test if anyone is interested in having a look.

This gives you teacher level access which is more than student but less than admin. I have added some modules and and playing with the settings, etc. All of the content was pre-existing and I still need to fix some links and documents.

Desired Performance

In six weeks I want to have this site up and running for 2007 enrolments. My wish list includes:

- Students being able to submit their assignments via the site

- Putting students into class groups so I can contact groups collectively

- Creating different menu structures for teachers and students

- Work out what books are and how to develop them

- Work out how to put a front end so people can enrol in and pay for the course online.

I am sure there will be more items as I get into things deeper.

Roadmap

Now that I have got the basics of the site up. I want to refine the content pages over the next week or so and then add the funtionality over the period. The plan for the next week or so it to:

- Listen to the podcasts to get up to speed

- participate in the live session (if possible)

- Tidy up the contents

Following that I want to:

- Get different menus working relevant to the person and course

- Create classes

- Create newsletters

and go on from there exploring the various modules that may be beneficial.