Lab Entry #1

Website Creation

Wix has tested my patience. Its slow and clunky interface — shown in this abandoned example — made it more trouble than it was worth, and my impatience to adapt to a new website creator made it all the worse. Wordpress was familiar to me as I had used it for projects in the past, but it never seemed to satisfy my hunger for a clean, minimalist blogging client.

I had sadly put Medium on the backburner, thinking that I wasn’t permitted to use it for this project. But alas, here I am again, back to the comfort of familiarity and clean interfaces.

Medium is awesome because it’s very user-friendly. Medium knows what bloggers and journalists like when curating their content, and understand that sometimes the simplest way is the best way.

I agree. Medium is accessible and versatile, which means when it comes to the realm of education, it can be used in a variety of ways. Beyond being a journaling source for students (when it comes to classroom projects like this), Medium is a great source for interesting, informative, and personalized content. There are hundreds of different subjects to explore with thousands of writers across the globe tuning in to read and write every day.

Anyone can be a writer on Medium. When I was a journalism student, Medium definitely encouraged me to write because everything I created just felt so professional. I felt like I had to ability to create content that mattered. As a teacher, I would definitely implement it into the classroom environment by either

Asking students to keep a journal or diary about their learning progress; students can also write and share articles with the rest of the world.

Asking students to find articles that interest them, or that relate to a unit that we are studying.

Asking students to find content that is both reliable and unreliable; differentiating, comparing, and contrasting the sources and authors, examining what makes them un/reliable.

I look forward to using Medium in the future, both as a teacher and a student.