Coming into this class I thought I was well prepared for the website assignment as this past summer I learned how to go in and edit sites for Penn Medicine. However, I quickly learned that editing and creating websites require two different skill-sets. While I have the knowledge to recognize what is wrong and change content, I had no idea how to create a site from scratch. I know this may seem kind of obvious, but I just associated the two processes to when I write and edit my own work (thinking that because editing is just rewriting something I had just created, I should be able to make something from scratch): I failed to distinguish the two, and thus requiring two separate skill-sets.
I believe that my shortfall in realizing this elicits the complexity and nuances that go along with these new digital media. Whenever we experience something new we always come in with our own predispositions. However, in this case new digital platforms not only require the know-how to effectively use a medium but also a combination of creativity and foresight. In order to successfully execute the task at hand, one must painstakingly go in step by step to reach the desired goal. Specifically for writing in html and CSS, the end result is not just a two-dimensional essay but also something entirely interactive connecting/ redirecting audiences to other sources of knowledge. Therefore, these should be considerably more complicated and not taken lightly, as I did.
Here is an article weighing the pros and cons of new and old media.
Leave a Reply