Before this class even began, I wanted to create my own blog. I create art in multiple different media—photography, music, drawing, etc.—and I wanted a place that I could host all of it to share with the world. Especially as I begin to look for jobs, I want a place where I can point employers to see my work—a sort of online portfolio.
Over my time abroad, I had used Google Blogger to create a page that served this sort of purpose, but any changes to the pre-set templates were incredibly difficult to make... at least for me.
So, instead, I wanted to create a site over which I had full control; a site that I designed myself. I was fortunate enough to have access to Dreamweaver through my job at UW's Digital Media Center, and I thought this would be a great place to start for someone who didn't have too much experience with HTML. But, as it turns out, it's way harder than I thought to simply design a website from scratch. Having very little practical experience in web design, the blank slate turned out to be much more daunting than I anticipated.
I wanted the blog interface, but I also wanted it to be easily customizable. I needed to find a happy medium between Blogger and the blank slate of a new Dreamweaver document, and I found that in Wordpress.
I'm impressed that you tried to jump right into Dreamweaver! It certainly is a complicated software to learn at first, but I would encourage you to stick with it! After you create a couple of things, you really get a hang of the program. It's amazing be able to create a web page from scratch.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Wordpress is a great site. There are a lot of things you can do to customize your site and make it your own. For of my classes, we had to make an online portfolio with writing samples, a resume, etc. It's definitely a good piece to have, and the Internet makes everything so accessible.