I wanted to remind everyone about the personal website draft, which is due tomorrow (Tuesday, April 6). As I said in class on Thursday, we are being flexible about this due date because everyone is at a different stage in learning Dreamweaver, HTML, and CSS. I will accept drafts through the end of this week’s Thursday evening help session (see below for details).

At the very least you should come to class tomorrow with a draft of the website “copy” (the written text—resume, biography, etc.) that you will use on each page of your site. If you do not have any pages built yet, bring your text as a word document on your flash drive. In class tomorrow, we will continue to work on our sites, and I will show you how to upload your draft site to our course web server.

Do not forget about the draft reflection paper! (see the assignment page for details)

Three important things for this week:

• If you do not want your site to go live at the draft stage you can burn your site folder onto a CD and turn it in that way.
• Tomorrow before class I will create a subdomain for each of you to use for your website. I will use your full first and last name for your subdomain unless you email me to tell me that you would like something else. My subdomain would look like this: <http://carrielamanna.writingonlineatcsu.net> Yours will have your name, of course. If you have your own server space and do not need a subdomain, email me to let me know.
• I will hold evening web design help sessions Tuesday and Thursday this week from 5:30-7:00 pm in our classroom (Eddy 2). I will accept website drafts through the end of the Thursday work session so that those who want to get more help before submitting a draft can do so.

First, I want to thank you all for sticking with me through the HTML and CSS explanations this week. I know not everyone finds code fascinating like I do. After the break we will learn how to use Dreamweaver to build our websites, and you will be glad that you learned a little bit of code once you start your work. Really.

So… do check out the W3Schools web tutorials over break. They are clearly written and give you easy hands on practice with HTML and CSS.

Finally, make sure that your revised technology manifesto is published as a page on your blog and let me know if you have any questions about the storyboard step in the personal website project. You can print the template and draw your storyboards by hand or adapt it to complete your storyboards electronically if you prefer. Either way is fine. Just make sure your storyboards are in color and that you use the space provided to clearly explain all the elements that will be included on each page of your website (text, images, video, audio, etc.). And make sure to title each page so that its purpose is clear.

Oh, and no blog posts next week.

As always, post a comment here if you have a question about anything discussed in this post!

Here’s an update/reminder about a few things we talked about in class Thursday. Leave a comment if you have any questions!

• we changed the due date for the revised manifestos to Thursday, March 11, which is the last class before spring break.
• the three Photoshop tutorials are due by class time tomorrow (3/2). If you run into any problems completing the tutorials, bring your questions and your Photoshop files to class tomorrow and Joe and I will help you troubleshoot so you can successfully complete them. Remember to put your name on your image file when you put it in the Writing Studio dropbox so know who it belongs to!
• remember to email your blog questions to Joe. He will answer your question in person during the next class session.
• we will spend all of class time tomorrow on the poster assignment. Bring your Nondesigner’s Design Book to class as it will be helpful in working on the assignment.

See you all tomorrow!

A few updates and clarifications following today’s class:

• I corrected the due date information on the Manifesto assignment. The draft is due Thursday, 2/18.
• For class Tuesday, 2/16 please read the Non-Designer’s Type Book. This is the second volume in our two volume design textbook by Robin Williams. Make sure to bring the book to class with you on Tuesday.
• If you were absent from class today, make sure to check out the changes I made to the course assignments and look at the additional information on the daily schedule—the schedule is available through spring break.
• Finally, I created a wiki in the Writing Studio where you can provide me with your blog information. A wiki is an online document that groups of people can edit. To add your blog information to our wiki, log into the Writing Studio and go to our class page. Choose “Class Wikis” from the menu on the right. Next, choose the “Blog List” wiki (this is the only wiki our class has!). You should now see a table where you can add your information: click “Manage” and then “Manage wiki.” Add your information to the table and click “update.” You should now see your information in the table. If you have any trouble with the wiki, you can email me your blog information.