HTML and CSS
When I started this course and the readings in the text, I studied the tag library in HTML. It wasn't a far cry from an encoding standard I had already become familiar with: EAD (Encoded Archival Description).
Understanding the placement of the codes and checking the public display (or I should say "View in Browser") made me more fluent in coding. I noticed one little typo creates undesirable or no effects at all- a hard lesson I learned.
The first webpage I ever created was the Jen's bistro lab assignment from the textbook. Following along step-by-step, the author held my hand as I coded everything in HTML verbatim to create the webpage. After placing the shadowed goose in the header, I clapped my hands and squealed that I had created a webpage, although on a drab page with the Dijon mustard colored background (I know, it's the little things that excite me).
I have to admit, I grew too reliant on the hand-holding. I had to step away from the lab exercises and make heads or tails of all this coding begging questions "what does this mean?" "Why can't I do it this way instead?" "How do I get animation in there?" "How do I get this drab color out of here?" "I am so in love with the Star Wars website and how that banner picture in the header takes up a significant amount of eye-catching real estate on their website...HOW CAN I DO THAT TOO!!??"
Reading definitions of what CSS is and trying to make a connection to my learning of HTML was difficult. I needed more than a definition and I felt the textbook lacked a little here - don't get me wrong! The textbook is a wonderful tool, but I am one of those students that tends to read outside of the textbook to see what others have to say about the same topic in different words and I like to follow the research trail of the author(s) of my textbook(s)...which is why my biggest weakness is time management. It is something I am working on. In any event, reading about CSS in the textbook, I became clear as mud. Working on the CSS1, CSS2, CSS3, CSS4 lab in our class, it finally became clear as water. CSS is the presentation of the HTML markup language. I see it as a framework, or guideline, that creates rules for the standard such as "all headers must be in bold," etc.
The biggest challenge, hands down, was file management (besides Dreamweaver :) ). Because I was working on a MAC computer in the lab, I continued my work on my PC, my laptop and even my tablet. So, geographically, saving documents in 4 places became confusing. Looking back, I can't believe how trusting I was that the documents saved on the MAC computer desktop in the lab without being deleted by the end of the day! One of the challenges (and mishaps on my behalf) was that I once I learned something, I started trying to do something on my own, going off on a different tangent. I opened up a notepad, copied and pasted what we just coded and got sidetracked. When I looked up, the class had moved on to something else and I missed some of the coding exercise!
A challenge of lesser magnitude was Photoshop. I have worked with Photoshop prior to this class and have made coloring books, comic books and painterly style artwork- all with the help of Youtube videos holding my hand throughout the process! I want to work more with Photoshop to understand the possibilities and implement my ideas into my website.
The biggest reward was starting my final website project. I drafted out some notes on the idea I had based on informing elementary school students, starting with the Kindergarten grade, on information literacy using primary sources. Working alongside the text and piggybacking off some of our in-class labs, I am scaling down on the original notes, which were a little ambitious and intended for future classes. I'll call this a work in progress, but it is rewarding to start creating my own website based on some of the hand-holding the author has provided to get me to understand the fundamentals of website development. Because it is a work in progress, I can't provide the link just yet. I will provide a link to the inspiration from a CSS lab we did in class:
http://www.cpp.edu/~nmzagami/512/labs/css1.html
I like the way the first letter "I" is highlighted as it reminds me of one of those illuminated manuscripts with the highlighted initial. I am going to use that for my opening "about page" to give the audience of my site the illusion of an illuminated manuscript. I am going to try to add as many picture examples as I am allowed (many of them are copyright protected, so I will be berry-picking from creative commons license photos as well as attributing to the proper museums). The overall website will look something like the CSS lab with buttons like we did in our layout lab: http://www.cpp.edu/~nmzagami/512/layoutdemo.html
One day, I would like to achieve this: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/roymanucoll/t/zoomify77429.html
I love the way this website has a thumbnail, the image, and zoom features where the viewer can inspect the manuscript piece by piece.
In sum, I have turned the most challenging parts of this class into opportunities. While I am still facing trouble connecting my documents to the server and trying to become fluent with Dreamweaver, I am allowing everything we have learned thus far to percolate in my mind and prepare for future classes.
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