lewro’s blog - 2.1 - web designer beginner

I have been studding CIW course for the past 14 months. I would like to analyse the course in this article and perhaps to get some for your ideas, opinions about these type of courses in general.

CIW web and e-commerce designer course phases

The course consist of these 3 parts

• foundation
• web designer
• e-commerce

I am currently at the end of the 2nd part.

Foundation - first part of the course

The first part concentrate on the basic knowledge of IT industry. You can find here details about hardware, software, internet services, internet protocols, official internet bodies, security issues etc. In my opinion it gives you solid basic overview about most important IT stuff you need to know. It is very useful and it has already helped me in many occasions . Someone might say that this part of the course goes to deep into general IT stuff for a web designer needs but I do not think so. You can not really do IT related job without necessary background.

Web designer - 2nd part of the course

This part of the course teaches you how to write html, CSS code, how to use Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash and how to code Java-script

In my opinion the study materials for this part are too old and should be replaced with actual web designers techniques. It does not mean that there is nothing you can learn. It gives you the basic knowledge and understanding but I think if you want to survive in the real world you have to learn from other books, internet, magazines how to write proper html, css code which validates, what tools are really used in web designers profusions etc.

Old techniques cheaper…

I Currently study java-script and I know the some of the stuff like scrolling text in status bar or pop-up alert messages are very old techniques but this course teaches you just that. It should be probably more oriented on DOM-Scripting but in this fast developing industry the study material for these type of courses would have to be update every year. But what would be the cost? Probably lot, lot more. The questions is: Is it better to learn old stuff to get the understanding of the whole process and later try to change the bad old habits or is it better to pay lot more for course which teaches you the actual stuff? For some of us it is not the question when we do not have the funds…

Is it worth?

Another question is: Is this course accepted by web designers companies or agencies?

If you have any idea please let me know.