This class has been extremely difficult for me, thus far. I’m not saying I hate it, but it gives me an enormous headache. However, I actually thought the troubleshooting assignment was pretty fun. I fixed more errors than I thought I would have, and narrowly missed getting a B. The initial website design wasn’t bad since there weren’t that many guidelines and we had a little freedom. The main problem I’ve had with the website is the amount of time it takes me to get FileZilla to work (publishing the site). On the Macs, it is much easier, but I don’t have one of those.
My least favorite part of the class is the format itself. I greatly appreciate that we usually don’t have to stay until 9:20 (I’ve stayed that late a few times), but the class is still too long for that time of day. I’d function much better in a standard class time that meets two days a week. Also, the lesson plan doesn’t fit well with helping students of various skill levels. It’s difficult to ask questions when the task is being explained, because you know it’s just interrupting everyone else, and it would take too long to soak in the instructor’s response right away. I would have preferred working step-by-step as a class, where we would be moving at a similar pace. This would be frustrating to some who work quickly, but no one would be left behind.
I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that I don’t want to be a computer programmer. I respect the skill of coding, but in the field I’m going in, I don’t see how I would ever need or want to know how to do some of this stuff. That being said, I’m glad I’ve learned some of the basics of HTML and can at least perform some basic web-layout tasks.
If you’re interested in seeing my shockingly basic design skills, you can check out my original Project 1 site at thegraysonkirkham.com/p1/.
My current site is better in some ways, but my Twitter widget seems to have messed up some of the centeredness of the home page. Website Re-design