Beyond the Wakefields

A web design workshop is one of the most valuable programs you can offer teens at your library. Most teens spend a lot of time on the internet and as the proliferation of social networking sites shows, they are interested in having their own little corner of the universe. Whether they are designing a website to sell their homemade t-shirts, posting their poetry and quotes, or changing the background on their MySpace, web design skills are useful both in their current lives and as potential future job skills.

Our web design workshop is a basic overview of internet safety, basic layout and design skills, What You Get editors (WYSIWYG), basic HTML, basic blogging and web hosting. We used the two computers in the young adult room and I set up my laptop in between with a powerpoint presentation in the middle so they could look at screenshots and instructions while they used the WYSIWYG editor on their own computers. Ideally a computer lab with a projector would help teach more students at a time but they got really individualized attention. I made a very simple, somewhat ugly website and explained all the different pieces of it, and talked them through rebuilding the exact same website to see how its done. The program was very introductory and I think a more advanced session would be necessary for anyone who really wanted to get into web design.

A lot of librarians are concerned about teaching their children and teens internet safety skills. Incorporating these skills into a web design course is an easy way to have a captive audience for a topic teens don’t necessarily want to hear. I give about a two minute speech about not posting your exact location, using a psuedonym or just your first name, and not giving away too much information in your posts (like: We hang out every day at the library or I was walking home from JFK school and went to Jimmy’s Pizza). It was simple and to the point. I think some of the internet safety craze is a little overblown, especially since it wasn’t all that long ago that I was a teenager using the internet, but it is appropriate to include this in your lesson.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 5:28 pm and is filed under web, programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.