First Pothole on the ISM Road

(Note to self: Go to another computer to test features, when you have your usual computer set to automatically log in to sites.)

Checking my school email at 10:30 p.m. last night yielded feedback from the first teacher trying to work through the ISM:

I am having trouble on the module. There are several places that ask me to give my "Reflections" on a page but where I am supposed to click "Edit the Page" it is saying "Protected." This module is really hard to understand most of the time. I am getting really frustrated. I feel like I am wasting my time.

Oh No, that certainly isn't what I intended! But it is invaluable information, and showed me some major bugs...

• the instructions about joining wikispaces.com and the TTR wikispace at the beginning of the Getting Started section must not be clear enough, or s/he would have been able to edit the page
• I've deleted those instructions, and changed the wiki settings (see below)
  
• requiring membership in wikispaces is a pain - I'm not constantly at my computer (no matter what my colleagues think!), so can't be certain of getting the membership requests moderated in a timely fashion.
• I've changed the settings to Public, so membership isn't required to edit pages
• The My Maps feature in Google Maps is really cool, but it turns out that "sharing" doesn't mean people can add to the map, it just means they can view a map set to Private
• I've deleted the Exploration recommendation that the user "add to the map"

True to life and Murphy's Law, Wikispaces.com was down when I tried to work on it last night. After tossing and turning and failing to find sleep, at 2:30 a.m. I was finally able to get into the site and make the changes. I've emailed updates to the teacher, in hopes s/he will be willing to give it another shot and provide me with more feedback. Does the phrase "Not Ready For Prime Time" ring a bell?

Now I'm worrying about the usefulness of the physical handout. I created it by copy/pasting directly from the wiki, but that means the handout is out of date almost as soon as it is made available. Let's hope I find a solution before bedtime; I'm not worth much on 2 hours of sleep!