What to bring with you

I suggest that you bring a ring binder which will take A4 paper punched with 2 holes, lined A4 paper and a pen for notes. There is a vending machine nearby for drinks and snacks so change as 10p, 20p, 50p and pound coins is worth its weight in chocolate (no eating or drinking in computer room itself please). At 9pm it will be cooler and darker, so you may want a jumper!

Recommended booklist

First Night

We meet in the ESF (European Social Fund) computer suite in the Art Department at 6.30pm and run through to 9pm. Ask for directions at Reception. We will have a break in the refectory half way through, with additional short breaks from the screens as required. The 24 evenings will actually be spread over more weeks due to half-term and any unforeseen circumstances.

We will go through the basics by a combination of demonstration and hands-on practice. As your skills increase during the course there should be progressively less demonstration and more time for you to exercise your skills, with help as required.

Week 1: Introductions
Welcome to Totton College.

Meet your tutor and fellow students.
Some form filling and picture taking, maybe (sorry).
Location of toilets and vending machine for snacks.
Fire drill, parking arrangements etc.

Computers, login, find and open Macromedia Dreamweaver MX.

Introduction to Dreamweaver
(Those with some previous Dreamweaver experience are advised to use this time productively planning future web design projects)
Set up site management, make site root folder and save index.html page.

We will design our first page using:

• Page properties (shortcut is Control-J or Apple-J on a Mac)
• The Toolbox known as the 'Insert' palette in MX, previously called 'Objects'
• The properties inspector
• Adding words and prepared (or pinched) pictures

Your first Web page in Dreamweaver!

Create a second page and add links back and forth to make your first Web site.

Homework

Consider what you would like to produce for your own site. This could be about yourself as a biography or as a promotional gallery of your work. An online cv can be very useful and should be considered. You may find something so personal a bit embarrassing early on the course and I admit I find it easier to be creative when working on my young son's site - especially as he has ideas of his own to contribute.

If you have friends who need a site to promote their band, or a society or charity who could benefit from their first site or a makeover of their existing one, please gather content in words and pictures which we can use in future weeks. It will be best if you work on more than one idea as different sites will give you more opportunity to experiment with techniques and styles. This will give you a better range to show a potential employer.

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