I'm teaching a technical and professional writing course that includes a four-week unit on Web design. We obviously won't be able to go into great depth, but I think it's reasonable to expect the students, at the end of that time, to be familiar with basic design considerations and able to put up a simple Web page.
Several tutorials have been mentioned on here, but I haven't seen anything lately. Has anyone been using anything that might be useful for this purpose?
Tom
w3 Schools
My favorite online tutorials are w3 schools. They are basic/no frills, and look rather bland, but they communicate the ideas, and have examples. They have tutorials on HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, pHp, pretty much anything you could want.
Sustainable Web Design
Sustainable Web Design: Resources For Building Better Websites is a site I often refer people to for basic design considerations on the web. There are several articles discussing both coding and design, but the design articles will probably be far more valuable for your course.
If your students will be learning to code their pages manually, then Dave's suggestion of the W3 Schools is an excellent resource for that. Since W3C are the people who maintain the actual web coding standards, their tutorials really are definitive.
But for design principles, definitely give Sustainable Web Design a looksee.
Thanks!
Wonderful. Thanks to you both.
My current plan is to have them code their pages manually. That's the way I did it myself, by golly, so that's the way my students will have to do it.
Having said that, I'm still exploring options, and I'm more interested in having them understand the basic process and design considerations than in having them memorize HTML and other codes.
Tom
Karl Stolley
Glad to help!
By the way, Karl Stolley, the author of the Sustainable Web Design site is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric & Composition.
Cheers,
Scott
Karl Stolley
Karl's site looks fascinating. Thanks for the link. He seems to be at Purdue. David Blakesley has spoken highly of that program to me, and if Karl's work is anything to go by, I can see why.
Tom
On Design
A few other resources to add here. I didn't realize until reading the last comments (and then rereading the initial post) that you were also looking for design. (By the way Karl Stolley link was excellent, thanks.)
CSS Zen Garden
CSS Resource Links
A List Apart
HTML Dog
HTML Dog is another site you might want to take a look at. I find that the HTML and CSS tutorials are fairly accessible to students.
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Charlie | cyberdash
Thanks!
I'm glad to see Sustainable Web Design is getting some use. I'll be returning to it this summer to tweak and update some things on it, and get some more content up related to PHP, JavaScript, and other goodies.
And just for the record, I am at Purdue finishing up my dissertation, but I'll be taking a job at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago this August :-)