Course Description
In this course, students will learn how to build a website— from concept to implementation — as a vehicle for professional self or group promotion. Web programming, graphic manipulation, audio/visual file formats, and website creation/maintenance tools will be used to create the final project – a website for each student in the class. Students must be able to demonstrate competency in general computing tasks as well as internet and web application use.
Note: This site is in place as a reference and archive of past materials. Current assignments, announcements and materials will be listed in Blackboard.
Notes for 2014:
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Because we are working in the Student Living Center lab, students should be aware that local files on lab computers, including preferences and site definitions, may be reset or changed between classes. Thus, it is essential to treat the lab computers as transient, always backing up work to an external location, and memorizing site login and setup information so it can be repeated throughout the semester.
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You will be required to purchase your own domain name and hosting. Your final website should be presented from www.yourname.com (or similar). A recommended solution for hosting and purchasing / managing a domain name will be offered.
We'll be using Wordpress as framework and content management system. While this in no way diminishes the importance of understanding code, it opens up all kinds of possibilities for leveraging existing code and raises the bar for what we can reasonably expect from completed websites.
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We will NOT be developing full websites using Adobe Flash. You will most likely see (and perhaps be impressed by) flash-based sites that are beyond the scope of this class.
- As much as possible, we will try to use "free" (as in you don't have to pay for it) software. Despite the power and flexibility of web development programs like Dreamweaver, students have expressed frustration upon leaving class and realizing they can't afford those same programs to continue doing their work. Thus, we'll use a combination of free text-editors, free FTP programs, Free image manipulation programs, and Firefox extensions to do our work.