Where can I learn IT Skills?

[KingRichard]

Any of you guys able to help me learn more about web/software design?

It's something I feel I am going to need to understand more of in the future, anyone recommend any courses etc. or even offer me 1 day a week placement for work experience?

I have limited Computer skills at the moment... ie; I can use one

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[baxtersweb]

Hi there

For web design I would start by getting to grips with HTML seen as though thats the core of the internet. Go to www.w3schools.com. They have some good tutorials to get you started. Have a quick look over HTML and then really get to grips with XHTML. Once you can create yourself a page by hand typing the HTML then move on to the CSS tutorial, this will most likely be a separate file that you create and will define the style of your site. Start by styling your body, text. Once you think you understand how it works and you see the potential then try creating layout with CSS e.g placing text in <div> tags, styling the <div>'s and positioning on the page.

Just keep experimenting until you are comfotable with what is going on and how it works. Make sure you understand most of the html tags and what and where they should be used. When you start to get more adventurous and you really know what CSS is all about then go to www.csszengarden.com, look at how it works and then browse for some excellent inspiration and examples of what can be achieved.

Alternatively you could just buy Dreamweaver (www.macromedia.com) and create your pages visually without writing any code whatsoever, which is far far easier but it all depends how serious you are about this.

Thats all for static sites, don't even look at dynamic sites until you have static sites cracked.

Hope thats helps

[puggit]

Mrs Puggit did a webdesign course at the local college - evening classes.

She set up a website for our wedding and since then has had requests for work from our photographer and some of his friends

She is already an IT professional though (tech support for a software company in Reading )

[KingRichard]

baxtersweb said:

Hi there For web design I would start by getting to grips with HTML seen as though thats the core of the internet. Go to www.w3schools.com. They have some good tutorials to get you started. Hope thats helps

Are the W3schools certificates recognised in the UK?
BTW very helpful, thanks

David

[IPAddis]

I know a couple of web designers who have several years experience and now write some quality web sites. However they will be the first to admit that their first few major projects were complete

You can't go on a two week course and expect to write complicated, dynamic web sites as you may have seen on the web. As long as you are aware of this, there are quite a few courses available on web design and application building. There are at least 5 courses on offer at my local college.

There is a LARGE difference between building a largely graphical and static based web site (in which case by all means use Dreamweaver and get some graphics skills) and a functional dynamic web site (in which case Dreamweaver will cause you headaches and you should concentrate on programming skills).

As I say, I have a few friends who have picked up web design in their spare time and are good at it. However for every one of them, there are 20 muppets who have a day course at Computeach and then expect to write a Yahoo clone in two weeks. Often this results in much shouting and arm waving by a less than understanding boss who doesn't know his Javascript from his externally-connected Autocad dongle. Just make sure your boss doesn't expect miracles!

Ian A.

>> Edited by IPAddis on Monday 14th February 13:27