Learning hand tagging started out easy. Creating titles and bodies, formatting text into different sizes and colors, inserting links and documents. I love the balance and attention to detail that is required. The whole process requires forward planning and building a website is rather like building a house of cards. Thus far we have gotten to a two story house, maybe three, but soon we will be progressing to the airier reaches of design elements and XHTML. I like having the videos that Professor Bonnici provided as well as the HTML5 book. Sometimes it's easier for me to follow written instructions, but being able to see someone go through the steps is also instructive.
One of the more interesting outcomes of learning HTML is that, even though I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I already feel more confident in my dealings with the internet. I use GoodReads pretty regularly, and until now my posts have tended to be just blocks of text, because I was intimidated by the "some html ok" note that accompanies each post. I have steered clear of adding images or links in the past, but I feel like I can be more creative in my reviewing from now on.
My biggest problem in creating a website comes not from the technical process, but from the creative process. I struggle to come up with content that I think will interest people, or which will even interest me.
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Today's image is in honor of the ungodly heat we're experiencing in Southern California. We're also in the midst of an epic drought in which frivolous water usage is frowned upon, but that can't stop me from imagining the cool waters of the Olympic Swimming Pool which was constructed for the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Generating content can be especially difficult when it's non-fiction, because we have a tendency to want to report things exactly as they happen (or at least I do), and usually even things that are hilarious in real life can come across as dull when they're put down in black & white. When I get bogged down by that thought, I think of two things. The first is "The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson, a book about cholera that I could not put down because it was so engaging. Seriously, check it out. The second is the way Kristin told stories at orientation- it could have been the dullest thing, but she found a way to break us all down into gut-busting laughter every time. And after the first few stories produced that result consistently, we began to expect it and would start cracking up in anticipation. Alls ya gotta do is train your audience, brah.
ReplyDeleteI miss you guys. Technology is wonderful and lovely because we can leave these messages and attend school from our homes all across the country, but I had so much fun actually being around you all!
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