Course Goals:

The goal of the course is to provide a foundation for each student's future web authoring efforts whether public or professional. The course should build on each student's theoretical and technical prior knowledge. This background will be different for each student, who will enter the course with widely divergent experiences with technology. Consequently, the workload in this class will vary with each student. In a workshop environment, students with more skills will be asked to help advance the foundation for students with less experience. No one will come out of the class an expert, but it is important that each person leaves with a higher level of knowledge and skill. Much of this will depend on individual student effort. Students should expect to:

• Learn background cultural and rhetorical issues for web authoring.
• Learn basic principles for designing digital texts.
• Learn basic technological skills for facilitating web compositions.

Required Texts

Suggested Technology Texts

Since students will have a variety of technical backgrounds, the types of approaches or technologies used will vary. Students will also be choosing different projects for different purposes, which means different technological skills will be needed for different projects. I encourage you to seek out tutorials on the web (some of which are listed on the links page in the syllabus), but also to buy a technology book if you know you want to develop your technical skill in a partiuclar area: learning more about CSS, using Dreamweaver to build and manage web sites, becoming more proficient at photoshop, whatever it might be.

The Peachpit Visual QuickStart Guides are usually pretty good reference texts. The SAMS Teach Yourself series is pretty good for tutorials that walk you through a process. Both series cover a wide variety of coding languages and software programs. Often times you can go backwards in time just one edition and find older editions fairly cheaply on Amazon.

• Castro, Elizabeth. HTML for the WWW w/ XHTML and CSS. 5th ed. Peachpit Press, 2003. (The 6th edition is out now, but I'm not sure how many of the 5th you can find.)
  
  
• Weinmann, Elaine and Peter Lourekas. Photoshop 7 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide. Peachpit Press, 2002. (This one is super cheap on Amazon, but the updated version will probably be much closer to the new Adobe Photoshop CS3. You can also buy Photoshop Elements in the university computer store pretty cheaply.)
  
  
• Bruce, Betsy. Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 in 24 Hours. 3rd edition. Sams, 2005. (Again, the new CS3 and CS4 versions are out, but you can get this one super cheap and get some basics out of it.)

Workshops:

Since this class is a 3 hour course, only a limited amount of time can be spent in class on technical skills. Depending on your level of technical knowledge entering the class, you may need to spend as much as 5-10 hours per week outside of class learning technologies in addition to reading and writing assignments.

In order to develop new skills or enhance the ones you have, you should also take advantage of the workshops and labs available on campus. You are required to attend at least two workshops and/or visit a lab for additional help in order to extend whatever knowledge level you already posses. Topics, dates, and times for these sessions can be found from the workshop schedules below. Some programs/skills have classes scheduled already, some do not. Check now because some are only offered early in the semester. Registration is required to attend most of these workshops. The Star Labs have many of the software programs you'll want to work with but also have walk-in peer tutoring. Bring in your materials and they can help you with your projects, questions, or problems.

Attendance

Each week we will do short assignments, discuss the readings, give presentations, and have lab time to work on projects or technologies. It is vital that lab time in class be utilized. Others around you can help with your efforts. Consequently, attendance is extremely important and will count towards participation grades.

Enrollment

Students are responsible for verifying their enrollment in this class. If I give you an override, for example, it is your responsibility to then go and sign up for the class. Any schedule adjustments should be made by the deadlines published in the Schedule of Classes:

• Last Day to Add: Feb 4, 2009
• Last Day to Drop: Feb 20, 2009

After the last day to drop a class, withdrawing from this class requires the approval of the dean and is only allowed for nonacademic reasons. You may choose to exercise a selective withdrawal. See the Schedule of Classes for selective withdrawal procedures. If you stop coming to class, it will be your responsibility to drop. Failure to do so will result in an 'F'.

Grades

Rewrite and Late Policy

Final grades will be based on three major projects and overall participation. I will give grades on the first two projects during the semester, and you may discuss the possibilities of revising those projects after I return grades. For the final project at the end of the semester and participation, rewrites don't apply. No late projects will be accepted. In order to have the opportunity to revise, you first have to turn something in on time.

Office Hours

I will have office hours in Sci Tech I 105 from 4:30 to 6:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will also be around after class if you need to speak to me. If you cannot make these times, then ask me to schedule a time that is convenient for both of us. I check my e-mail several times daily, so this will be the best way to contact me in a hurry if you have a question or problem, especially about what is due that week. The only other option is to call and leave a phone message, but I will not receive it immediately.

Specific Needs