Some of the most meaningful tasks that I learned in this class were: Google applications, website creation stylings, html code, and website editing programs.
Google applications are the variety of programs online programs through their Google.com website. Programs such as Google Documents, Google Calendar, and Google Groups are revolutionary to me for organizing and synching data with conversations with meetings at my workplace. Through Google Documents I now am now able to upload a document and have multiple people edit it, which keeps the information compiled in one place, and I don't have to compare different versions of the same document from 3 or four people. It has definitly cut down the percentage of error on the final product. Google Calendar allows me to schedule meetings and pass around agendas via the "invite" function and putting a link to the uploaded Google Document in the Description/Notes box. Google Groups has even let me create an open discussion forum where different levels of management can discuss issues and keep track of ongoing projects. When we learned about Google Apps on the first day of class, I immediately saw the use of this product and began implementing it at work. It has made my job a lot more efficient and easier to do.
Website style is hard to develop when you have no artistic ability. So the website style guides helped me a lot to understand the flow of how a website should look like. It took me from looking at websites in a linear "get-the-data-in" frame of thinking into a more abstract "how-to-get-the-data-across" understanding. It also helped me to understand that graphics play a large part in the absorption of information and that style can go a long way to keep a reader's attention. I also began looking at websites in their overall layouts, how the page flowed, how it was structured, what makes it look too busy and how to convey the information clearly without too many frills.
Without HTML code this page would not exist! Mr. Zamora's explaination of opening tags, closing tags, and shortcuts tags have helped me understand the process of webpage source code in much more depth. I had been modifying the existing code of a small business website somewhat blindly, learning HTML as I went, but mostly just using the options the web editing program -- Dreamweaver -- included. This did not always turn out the page the way I wanted it to look, so I had to alter the HTML code within the page to modify to their needs. It was NERVE RACKING not knowing if the code I had copied and pasted would screw up the whole site or not. Especially when I would misplace opening and closing tags; the page would look horrible! It took me a long time to figure out a few basic tags. I learned in class the proper way to write script and found many free resources that helped me to understand the basic concept of website programming much better.
Lastly, I found out that there are MANY different ways to edit webpage script. Along with that concept comes the realization that there are just as many different programs that can be used to do so. Kompozer is just one free web page editor program that was introduced to us by Mr. Z. Microsoft Notepad can also be used. Macromedia (Adobe Systems) Dreamweaver is the one that I used at work. Because it was an older version of Dreamweaver it had a lot of bugs in it. I am happy to find out that I can either use a free program to do my work, or that I can petition for a different paid subscription program. But it is cool to know that I can create websites from home without having to buy an expensive program on my own.
All-in-all this class was great and I would like to learn more about
web technologies. This was a great class for beginners and the basics
of web activities are well explained. I would recommend it to anyone
interested in learning more about any of these subjects.
