New Media Production

What I Have Learned

This course has been so amazing for my educational journey. I have learned so many things during this course that I can make me a vital person for my future employers and even myself if I am self employed.

Going into this class I had zero understanding of coding or of website building. After this class I can confidently build websites and code in multiple different ways. This is something I have always dreamed of being able to do but always talked myself out of doing because I “didn’t have time” or I convinced myself that it would be too difficult to learn how to do.

Therefore, I am incredibly thankful to the New Media Institute and, my instructor for this course, John Weatherford for teaching me this material. Specifically teaching me in a way that gave me confidence and helped me fulfil my goals.

Through this course I was able to complete the learning objectives:

  • Purchase and configure domain names and web hosting.
  • Create websites by hand with HTML and CSS.
  • Design responsive websites with front-end frameworks like Bootstrap.
  • Develop complex extensible sites powered by a content management system (CMS) like WordPress.
  • Use fundamental programming concepts in JavaScript to enhance interactivity on web sites.

–New Media Production Spring 2021 Syllabus

It was so inspiring to see my progression through this class.

My first website was an application of my newly learned HTML and CSS skills and my final project was using WordPress and all of it’s function to the best of my ability, showing my progression in learning. The difference between the two websites is astonishing.

I remember how excited I was when I built my first website. I posted all about it on Snapchat.

My First Website

screen shot of website
The homepage of my first website.
screenshot of website
I am very proud of the coding that went into this particular element. The lines in-between each poem was very difficult to get right. The spacing, in particular, was difficult.

Follow this LINK to visit my first website and explore for yourself.

My Final Project

As mentioned in the prior paragraphs, I have progressed a great deal since my first website.

My final project was something I enjoyed due to being able to really create what I wanted to. (Overall, this was very true of my whole experience in Weatherford’s class, which made the learning process very enjoyable.) I created the website that I have always wanted to create. Utilizing WordPress to the fullest extent was very fun. I had a lot of fun searching for and trying out different plugins. Adding the different plugins to my website just added that extra spice to it.

Here you can see how different this website is from my first website. Using a WordPress template I created a blog with all the content I have always wanted to display but never had a way to display it. With the education gained in this class I am now able to create content and display it how I desire.

final project screenshot of website
The homepage of my final project.
Using the gallery setting offered by WordPress.

I used two different options to display my photos on my website.

Using the slider option from the Otter plugin.

Follow this LINK to visit my Final Project website and explore for yourself.