“If You Think You Can’t…
February 9th, 2008you’re right.” That saying is part of a quotation attributed to Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. What do cosmetics have to do with coding a web page? Absolutely nothing; but the philosophy behind the product does.
If you’ve ever looked at a web site on the internet, wondered how it was developed and, for a fleeting moment, considered creating a web site of your own, you had a touch of inspiration. Chances are, though, that thought was followed by, “I can’t do that”. If you’ve convinced yourself you don’t have the skills to publish a web site, I’m not going to argue with you. After all, you’ve already talked yourself into not being able to do it.
Now if on the other hand, there is even a smidgen of doubt, you’ve come to the right place.
Over the past several years of teaching at LVS, I’ve had a number of students proclaim they were nervous, doubtful, and even intimidated by the prospect of learning web site coding. Yet, they signed up for Build Your Web Site - Intro course. Kudos to them and to their ultimate accomplishments because those folks have web sites today.
You see, it’s all a mindset. The lessons play a large part as well!
I’ve designed the Level I course in such a way that it introduces basic coding concepts by discussion and example. Each lesson builds on the previous one so what you learn in Lesson 1 will be used consistently throughout the rest of the lessons, as well as in all the Build Series classes, thus affording you the opportunity to become comfortable, by virtue of repetition, with the coding experience as you learn new material.
The material, although somewhat technical in nature, is presented in an easy to read, casual manner. A former student commented she was afraid the lessons would be like having to “read some geek manual”. Instead, she went on to say, they were more along the lines of a friend talking to her. Mission accomplished.
And should you “hiccup” during any part of the lessons, I’m there to help. Students are assigned to a class message board on which they post their assignments and ask questions. You are never left to your own devices; there is no need to research any outside resources to complete an assignment nor are you left stranded without guidance.
For those individuals with previous coding experience, this class is of benefit as well. I’ve had student after student tell me they didn’t realize to what extent standards compliant X/HTML coding and CSS had developed since they learned to code.
So, whether you’re new to coding or have prior experience, if you think you can ~~~ I’ll “see” you in class.
