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Drupal =// Introduction //=

Drupal is a constantly evolving and seemingly endlessly expanding web program which potentially can help its users find a more convenient way of dispaying content on the web. Drupal is free and, if used correctly, a useful tool which can play a major role in everything from classrooms to business offices to everyday life.

=// What is Drupal? //=

Drupal is a software package that is free to users. It is a management system that allows individuals or groups to manage content on the web such as: blogs, images, files, discussion forums, podcasts, etc. It can be used for many different tasks which may include: building a school's web presence, increasing class participation, creating staff pages, and much more.

=// The History of Drupal //=

The idea of Drupal was sparked in 2000 when two men by the names of Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder, students at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, created a wireless bridge between their fellow students and Snijder's modem connection, because the students were not able to purchase the wireless internet connection due to the high cost at the time. Although this was a great set up, they soon realized that they had no means of communication between the students. It was then that Buytaert decided to create a site with a built-in web board to allow the students to communicate back and forth. The site went unnamed until after Buytaert graduated. Wanting to stay in touch with each other after graduation, they turned the internal website into an online website available to everyone. Drop.org became the original name of the website after he made a typo when entering dorp.org (dorp being the dutch word for village, which they found suitable for the community website). Not long after the website went public, its audience began to expand and the website became an experimentation port for those exploring new paths for technological development. In January of 2001, the software behind drop.org was released and became known as "drupal" (the English pronunciation of the Dutch word "druppel" which means "drop"). As of 2008, Drupal had a community of over 350,000 subscribed members and is continuing to grow rapidly.



=// Advantages of Drupal //=

It is easy to use & update
You can update your own site when you want - where you want - without fuss. No need to get your web designer to do it for you. Using a properly configured WYSIWYG editor like TinyMCE, you can even paste content from Word and have it take out all those tag peculiar to MS Word.

Value for money
Drupal is open source software, so you don't need to pay any licensing fees or development costs.

Reliable & Secure
Drupal has an extensive and active community supporting it. It is constantly being improved and is subject to extensive testing so you can count on it to be rock solid .

Search-Engine Friendly
It can be configured for friendly URLs. Content output is designed to be standards compliant which will not not help boost your search engine rankings but be accessible as well.

Modular and Extendible
You can add extra features like blogs, forums, e-commerce and calendars if you wish. There are multitudes of third party modules to choose from to extend Drupal.

Use Drupal when:

 * you want a rock solid & high quality platform for your sites
 * you want or need a real multi-site-feature (only one installation for several sites)
 * you need any kind of user groups & user permissions
 * you need to run also membership- and community sites, not only CMS etc
 * you want a Powerful templating system
 * you're ready to invest a bit of your time in order to realize all the huge possibilities of Drupal
 * you understand the meaning of clear, high quality code and API (easy to integrate with other solutions etc)
 * you want flexibility and don't like limitations

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=// Disadvantages of Drupal //=

Databases are great for storing passwords, content, and countless other things. These things do not include “views”, i.e. templates. In the database. Drupal stores templates in the database. It also stores logs in the database.

If you wanted to update the page, you edited the HTML, and re-uploaded the file. Then people who didn’t know HTML started clamoring for a way to edit their own sites. Along came Content Management Systems, presumably to let an admin log in, edit, save, and call it a day. Enter Drupal. This CMS, my friends, is so bloated that it takes days, if not weeks, for the layperson to learn their way around it. In fact, some Drupal clients are so confused by the interface that they still send editors their content and ask them to input it for them.

Drupal has a history of security vulnerabilities and is written in ugly spaghetti code. It also has poor maintainability. In other words, upgrading to a newer Drupal version breaks templates and other code you may have written for an older version. Fixing this, of course, costs time and money. Other frameworks also deprecate older APIs, but usually, the changes between versions of other frameworks are not so drastic, and there is often a helpful process built in to migrate your code.

There’s been quite a backlash over Drupal’s new trademark policy, which is rather contrary to the spirit of open-source software. Why protect your trademark so fiercely, Drupal? Your product is open, and great, so why the need to protect it against sites like [|Drupalsucks.com]? =// Issues of Drupal as a Website //=

Although Drupal has constantly been evolving software, which includes many different versions and updates, there have been a few associated problems or technological issues with the site in recent years. Most of these issues are quite technical and involve the code writing behind the actual website, but some are actually common among normal users and affect the functionality of the site itself. One issue stems from the internet website, Safari, which has been reported having session issues with Drupal, in which users trying to enter content are kicked back to the homepage and all of their work is lost. Safari is a popular internet browser with millions of users worldwide, so you can imagine the problems and frustration these issues incur on the users.

Another major problem that even Drupal has gone out of their way to address is the so-called "White Screen of Death". This phrase refers to the occurrence when a user tries to navigate to a page, but when they arrive on the page, all of the content mysteriously disappears leaving the screen blank. Drupal has written their own response to this issue and on how to try to correct it, but users still encounter this issue and there seems to be no permanent solution in sight. In addition, the solution Drupal offers is very complicated, and average computer users would most likely not be able to understand the complex codes and site changes that need to happen in order to fix the problem.

Finally, the last major technical issue with Drupal involves the users who primarily utilize the site for writing blogs (online journals). These blogs often come under fire due to massive amounts of spamming (internet junk-mail), and this spam can infuriate the user. The unwanted additions of this spam will often decrease the functionality of the user's site by making it slower and more difficult to navigate. However, this problem is more easily remedied than the previous one because there is a free program, Mollom, which should be able to block the spam on an average user blog.

Despite these issues, Drupal stays committed to constantly evolving and making their software less problematic. Each new version brings a multitude of changes, some more noticeable than others, and there is hope that one day Drupal will be free of many of the technological issues that they still struggle with today. =// Where will Drupal go from here? //= Drupal certainly looks like it will have a long and productive future in front of it, but the big question remains as to what this future will hold? One possible outcome of the Drupal developments could be its possible inclusion in the classrooms of the future. Drupal offers a variety of advantages to prospective teachers that are looking to involve their students in the world on online media, since many of the students are already quite familiar with this technology. Students and teachers could learn a lot from the use of Drupal in the classroom, and below are just a few examples about how this feat could be accomplished.

For one, online discussions are the classroom dialogues of the future, and teachers that fail to embrace this technology will get left in the dust. Drupal offers a way for students to connect with one another online outside of class to talk about novels that they are reading, homework that needs to be done, or basically anything else that teachers can think of. Sure, it is true that other online discussion boards do exist, but few can match the relative ease that Drupal offers students to get and stay connected in a timely manner.

Along the same lines, student created blogs help bridge the gap between educator and student to make the classroom seem a little bit less formal. Students can blog about their opinions on class, changes that could be made, or whatever else seems pertinent to the teacher's lesson, so Drupal could offer students a way to start this blog up and keep it running. In an educational system where teachers manage content and students abide by their rules, blogs and online discussions offer a level playing field for teachers and their students to communicate freely and openly about issues that effect their class on a day to day basis.

In addition, there have been a number of books, like "Drupal for Education and E-Learning" (https://www.packtpub.com/drupal-for-education-and-e-learning/book), which make Drupal even easier for educators. Due to the fact that Drupal is based off of a code system, those unfamiliar with the technology may not be able to use Drupal to its full potential. However, this no longer has to be a fear for teaching looking to include Drupal in their classrooms, since this book takes the code-writting side of Drupal and boots it out the door. Now, even the most computer-illiterate educator can familiarize themselves with and effectively implement it in their classroom for student use.

Here is a video by a Bill Fitzgerald about how Drupal could also be used in the classroom, and the advantages it offers to both students and teachers alike:

media type="custom" key="8358648" align="center" **//Conclusion//**

Drupal, though faulty at times (but what isn't), should definitely be considered when building a base for a classroom. It can make communication and interactions between students and teachers easier both inside and outside of the classroom. With the constant technological expansions taking place, Drupal is a simple and basic application that is fairly easy to understand, making classroom management (lesson plans, homework, notes etc.) much easier for the teacher.

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**// Sources //** https://www.packtpub.com/drupal-for-education-and-e-learning/book
 * Buytaert, Dries. //Drupal//. N.p., 1999. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. . **
 * Solomon, Gwen, and Lynne Schrum. //Web 2.0: how-to for educators//. N.p.: International Study for Technology in Education, 2010. 180-84. Print. **
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 * [|http://robozen.com/technology/drupal-suckshttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678641347193435170http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678641347193435170http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678641347193435170#]**
 * http://www.chromaticsites.com/blog/15-common-drupal-problems-that-make-you-scream-solutions-included/ **