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creating weblogs, as this form of production shifts attention to the
specifics of writing for the medium, and grappling with the issues of what
makes a valuable contribution to a globally networked text environment.
Issues of usability, user-testing, and understanding web production as an
iterative process is also important (a website is never "finished"!). Here's
a reasonably comprehensive set of notes on user-centred web design:

=> http://www.its.monash.edu.au/web/slideshows/ucd/spusc.html

I'd question the value of WYSIWYG tools. If I'm writing my notes now, I
would probably just work with CSS to deal with layout and visual issues.
<http://glish.com/css/home.asp> has some great templates you can get
students to adapt. As work increasingly goes into XML production
environments, where code will be read by machines rather than humans, I
think it's very important that students become familiar with HTML as a
*structural* markup language, and understand the need to distinguish between
content and presentation. Dreamweaver et al. tend to hide this and encourage
students to shift their attention to getting the application to produce HTML
that looks a certain way (which is difficult when the code is so obscure
they can't debug it). We're just restructuring the course to take out
Dreamweaver from the production of the second assignment, as we found it was
hindering rather than helping students' understanding of the production
issues. We cover Dreamweaver in a class: "Now that you know how it works
here's an example of software that can help you create it". (Note that I am
not usually a hard-line old-schooler on this stuff, but we weren't happy
with the learning outcomes using the WYSIWYG tools).

I would be perhaps thinking about a three stage process:

1) a basic 3 page HTML site that uses standard HTML markup, and generates
images using Photoshop or similar (I wouldn't recommend design tools such as
Freehand/Illustrator unless they have prior knowledge of these
applications).

2) Construction of a weblog using Movable Type/Blogger etc.

3) Building an advanced site (possibly on the topic of the weblog and adds
resources etc.) that uses CSS for layout, or even integrates the weblog if
you get that far. Also focus on how to let people know about the site by
participating in appropriate egroups and forums etc.

Whatever you do, thinking about your particular students and their needs is
important. I know that sounds obvious, but there are lots of reasons to
learn web production and they all require a slightly different approach. My
preference is to reduce the number of tools students learn and increase
focus on the content, context/medium, and sound production processes.

Hope this helps

Danny


aoir.z3z at danah.org wrote on 27/10/02 6:25 AM:

> 
> I guess it depends on the level and the amount of time, but i'd suggest
> (in a sorta technical level order):
> 
> Basic HTML concepts and then build through Dreamweaver
> Some combination of Photoshop/Illustrator/Fireworks/Freehand
> Flash
> PHP & MySQL
> 
> And possibly throwing in basic setup/design of Webblogs (i.e.
> MoveableType) and that movement (which is still new and interesting,
> always a motivation for students and can definitely get into the comm
> perspective).
> 
> Of course, this is just the technological section of it...
> 
> danah
> 
> 
> On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Nicole Ellison wrote:
> 
>> I'm looking for a good text to use in an undergraduate web production
>> class (Comm Dept)-- something technically sound but accessible,
>> preferably grounded in some solid design principles. Any suggestions?
>> Has anyone used Weinman's creative html design.2?

-- 
http://www.dannybutt.net