Final Thoughts…

Well, the time has finally come: this is my last blog post of the semester. I presented my final site in class on Tuesday, and I really appreciated the feedback and suggestions I got from Dr. Petrik and the rest of the class. I still have several things I need to do before the site is truly “finished”, but I think I should be able to get all of those done by May 11.

Since this is the end of the semester, I just want to take a moment to reflect on how far we all have come since our first class on January 19. Personally, I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the prospect of having to learn HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop—all things that I had no familiarity with—in a single semester. I honestly did not know if I would be able to accomplish my (modest) goal of being able to produce a site that at least resembled what I had envisioned in Clio I. For those that weren’t in my Clio I class, at the end of last semester, for my final project, I put together a mock-up of my proposed website. It was called “The Integration of College Football,” and I created my mock-up using Microsoft Publisher 2003 (you can see my mock homepage to the left). Clearly, it was not very sophisticated. But I honestly did not think I would be able to create an actual website that even resembled it.

Now, I’m happy to say that I was able to put together something that actually looks better than what I had envisioned. Reflecting back on the semester (and really, the whole year) made me realize that unlike in other classes, we can all tangibly see the progress that we have made in this class. With each batch of assignments, we all got better and better. I was able to go from this to this to this to this and finally, to this. Although my final site is far from perfect, and I will certainly never be described as an expert web designer, it is gratifying to see that all of the hours that I spent struggling with Dreamweaver and Photoshop did pay off.