Website Development / Design course

BigDuffman

I just finished up an Online Marketing and Advertising dip. and I am looking to expand my skill set.

I have no knowledge in website design / development. So would be approaching it as a total noob.

I moving into the area of online marketing. And would like to be a bit more technically competent. Can anyone recommend a relevant (preferably part time) course in Dublin?

anbrutog

BigDuffman wrote: »

I just finished up an Online Marketing and Advertising dip. and I am looking to expand my skill set.

I have no knowledge in website design / development. So would be approaching it as a total noob.

I moving into the area of online marketing. And would like to be a bit more technically competent. Can anyone recommend a relevant (preferably part time) course in Dublin?

To be honest , from what I can gather the standard of the few web design courses in Dublin is quite bad. I did the DBS web design diploma last year and I would describe it as nothing short of shambolic ( We spent around 30minutes on CSS , which gives you a idea as to how crap it was )

Best thing is to try one of the online tutorials , lynda.com provide everything you need.

mcgu

Here's a free link to Lynda.com

http://www.lynda.com/promo/freepass/Default.aspx?lpk35=240

BigDuffman

Thanks lads! So you lads would reccomend not going to a paid "course"

Axwell

IACT are another place that do courses if you want to take a look but they tend to be expensive and over just a few days, some you can do at night i think.

If you are learning as you go and its just to gain some knowledge in the area then you should be able to learn a lot from lynda.com also look at w3schools.com

As someone above said the standard of courses in web design is pretty poor and dated and you would be better off going the online route and taking your time. Perhaps give yourself a side project to design a site around a hobby you are interested in and use what you learn to make the site as you go.

You can always pop back here for tips or help as you work on it then aswell and get feedback.

mattfinucane

If you are serious about web development and design you could always check out a Degree in Digital Media Engineering in DCU - http://www.dcu.ie/prospective/deginfo.php?classname=DME

You could also look at the following sites:

-- www.tizag.com
-- www.sitepoint.com
-- www.iwf.ie

Best of luck with it.

Driven4aLivin

I'm in a similar situation and have been researching evening courses in web design in Dublin as I work full time. I'd be paying for the course myself and to be honest can't afford to pay 1000+ for a course. I'm looking for an affordable but accredited web design course that will give me a solid enough foundation to learn extras online or from books and potentially do additional courses as add-ons as and when I can afford them. Has anyone any thoughts on a suitable course? I've been looking at this IBAT one http://www.ibat.ie/index.php/courses/computing-and-it/fetac-diploma-in-web-design-l5.html.

BigDuffman

That IBAT course looks good. Might have a look into that.

I've also been looking at the digital marketing institute. They seem to know their stuff as most of the lecturers are actually prominent in the industry as opposed to academics!

The Word Press course looks like a basic intro http://digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/coursedetails/wordpress-training-course-12-day-course/ as its only one day. But the Diploma looks good. http://digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/coursedetails/diploma-in-digital-marketing-part-time/

Dave!

That Wordpress course looks very basic indeed. Wordpress is easy to use, it's all very intuitive, it just takes a bit of useage to get to know it.

They're charging €300 to learn things such as

# Pages and Posts – what are they?
# Adding Images and Video
# Tags and Categories

:eek:

Installing Wordpress on your website is tricky the first couple of times, but there's abundant resources online that'll show you how to do it.

Learning to design your own WP theme definitely requires a good knowledge of XHTML and CSS, as well as a decent knowledge of PHP. You'd need to know that to get any benefit out of that aspect of the course.

I'd steer clear mate

If you're looking to get into web design, then avail of the huge amount of resources online ! Learn XHTML and learn CSS, and keep practising them until you can make them do what you want. There's tonnes of tutorials online where you can learn the basics, and if you're having trouble with a specific part, then there's likely to be dozens of tutorials for that specifically

Courses can be good, but you learn web design by hands-on work, practise, trial-and-error, etc.

Driven4aLivin

Driven4aLivin wrote: »

I'm in a similar situation and have been researching evening courses in web design in Dublin as I work full time. I'd be paying for the course myself and to be honest can't afford to pay 1000+ for a course. I'm looking for an affordable but accredited web design course that will give me a solid enough foundation to learn extras online or from books and potentially do additional courses as add-ons as and when I can afford them. Has anyone any thoughts on a suitable course? I've been looking at this IBAT one http://www.ibat.ie/index.php/courses/computing-and-it/fetac-diploma-in-web-design-l5.html.

Hey Dave-I see what you're saying on terms of hands on learning and using online learning tools.I would like to do a basic starter course to give me a good grounding from which I can learn myself. Is there any course you'd recommend -the best of a bad lot even!?!

hellbent

You state: I just finished up an Online Marketing and Advertising dip. and I am looking to expand my skill set.

I wonder why you need to do a course on web design for your stated purpose?
If you need extra certificates or diplomas to add to the Marketing Diploma in order to get a job, that's fine. Most courses will provide all sorts of generalised information that will get you exam results, but will do little to expand your ability to design websites.
I know, because I completed an 11-month long Fas course several years ago. It was very thorough, covered everything, but at the end I barely knew how to go about a real life website. My education began AFTER the course, with hands-on situations, and by Googling for information/tutorials, etc.

So I recommmend doing no course at all unless you need a paper qualification. Install XAMPP -apache server- on your pc. Google xampp, and follow their instructions to the letter. Then learn SOME xhtml, css and how to read php coding, just what u need at any one time. It will make sense quickly, and once you take it a bit at a time, you'll learn far more of useful stuff than you'd get on a course. And use Dreamweaver if you can, for writing code and creating your pages: the interface makes learning far easier.

Dave!

Driven4aLivin wrote: »

Hey Dave-I see what you're saying on terms of hands on learning and using online learning tools.I would like to do a basic starter course to give me a good grounding from which I can learn myself. Is there any course you'd recommend -the best of a bad lot even!?!

Nah I'm afraid I don't know of any decent courses myself mate sorry ! I know that FÁS do one though, maybe that'd be for you?

http://jobbank.fas.ie/servlet/Watis?SESS=63526_4&SERVICE=CRITERIUMBROWSE&COURSE_CODE=Q04&TEMPLATE=WWW_JS_TRAIN_CRITERIUM_BROWSE.HTM&ROW=43&BACK=TEMPLATE%3DWWW_JS_TRAIN_CRITERIUM_OVERVIEW.HTM

(hopefully that link works)

Have a search on http://www.nightcourses.com/ and http://www.eveningclasses.ie/ also

Driven4aLivin

Thanks Dave....I'll check it out.

Driven4aLivin

So I recently completed the FETAC Level 5 web design course at the IBAT in Swords. To be honest I've mixed feelings about it. Here's a bit of an overview for anyone considering a similar course.

The course was on a Monday at 6.30pm in Swords. I work in the city centre so with traffic it was a pain to get there every Monday.

IBAT staff were helpful and the customer service was great.

There were around 20 or so people in the class - very mixed ages...from early 20's right through to a couple of people who looked like they might have been late 50's.

On the first evening we were given a class manual which was essentially each weeks lesson in one printed book. Each week we went through each lesson step by step

The lecturer was quite young and really didn't teach the class like any class I've ever been in before. Each week we came in and went through the step by step exercises ourselves and he came around asking if we were ok. Because of the mixed abilities in the class a few struggling people commanded most of his time.

We didn't get the background I'd have expected in relation to each exercise. Why were we going a certain thing? What was the benefit? etc. We literally went through the exercises step by step.

I had been advised by some people that you can learn all you need to know about web design from sites like lynda.com. However I wanted to begin by doing a basic course so I was sure I had a grasp of everything and then felt I could build up my skills online after that. But a distance learning/online course would have been just as good as the IBAT course as essentially we were working away ourselves anyway more or less. Yes we'll have a cert at the end of it but if you're cash strapped and have any level of computer literacy I'd suggest you do a distance learning course/online course...it would be just as good. If you're certain you want a 'taught' class, I'd check that the class you're looking at actually has someone who 'teaches' as in gives some background, talks about different ways of doing things, the benefits, the rationale behind doing something a particular way and so on.

Hope this helps someone else looking at web design courses.

Collumbo

BigDuffman wrote: »

I just finished up an Online Marketing and Advertising dip. and I am looking to expand my skill set.

I have no knowledge in website design / development. So would be approaching it as a total noob.

I moving into the area of online marketing. And would like to be a bit more technically competent. Can anyone recommend a relevant (preferably part time) course in Dublin?

I'm not up on what the good courses are in Dublin at the moment... but if you have a little time on your hands to do some reading and playing around on a computer, then have a look at the "In Easy Steps" series of books. They are excellent, everything is nicely colour-coded and they are very easy to read, understand and follow. I would rate the books better than the "...for Dummies" books. Start off with the HTML one to see if it's something you have the head for... http://www.ineasysteps.com/ For about €12, you will know fairly quickly if it's something you will be genuinely interested in rather than forking out a few hundred quid and then realising you hate computers. If you like the HTML book to begin with, then CSS is the next one to buy... I've had the CSS one for few years and the it's a little gem as a quick reference guide.

Then polish your skills by learning what a CMS is and learn how to play with one... (drupal or wordpress or something like that). Don't jump into the deep end and start with the CMS... You'll probably get lost at installation stage.

Ihavehadenough

Looking at your post history, you seem to have attended a lot of great courses there recently

(This was in a response to a post that has now been deleted)

maddragon

Professional standard at ANYTHING after doing a 2 day course. That's the attitude that has the country where it is. Hence hairdressers as qualified BER assessors, non-qualified estate agents just setting up office, a barrister as minister for finance. Shur aren't we great, we can turn our hand to anything with a bit of bluff.

Diane Vicky

Hi,

I'm looking into doing the part-time evening Desktop Publishing Course in IBAT. It costs €1200 so I want to know if its actually decent. I've basic experience in Photoshop, did TV and Film production in college but I'm looking to get into Graphic Design. Anyone done the course and if so what are the lecturers and actual standard of work like? Thanks

swordsinfo

Dave! wrote: »

Nah I'm afraid I don't know of any decent courses myself mate sorry ! I know that FÁS do one though, maybe that'd be for you?

http://jobbank.fas.ie/servlet/Watis?SESS=63526_4&SERVICE=CRITERIUMBROWSE&COURSE_CODE=Q04&TEMPLATE=WWW_JS_TRAIN_CRITERIUM_BROWSE.HTM&ROW=43&BACK=TEMPLATE%3DWWW_JS_TRAIN_CRITERIUM_OVERVIEW.HTM

(hopefully that link works)

Have a search on http://www.nightcourses.com/ and http://www.eveningclasses.ie/ also

Would you be interested in.one to one lessons. I'm looking into web training as I think the standard is completly shocking to be honest.

Courses spend more time configuring software than explaining how it all works. I can go as indept as you want with regard to Tec difficulty. I don't offer a cert but I will help you join all the dots together from html, CSS to database - data driven websites!

PM me if you are interested?