Thinking of taking an online class, like my Web Design class, here at FIT?
Let me give you some reasons that you will not see any where else on why learning online just might be fore you.
You can eat anything you want in class. Order a pizza and a coke and spill it over your keyboard. No one will tell you that you can’t have food in the lab.
You can wear anything you want. Fashion is totally up to you when you take an online class. Work in your T-shirt or even a little less.
When you get up at 2am, rather than eat a piece of chocolate cake, you can feed your brain with something good to learn.
Didn’t swallow a bottle of Scope just before class? Not to worry. Bad breath is not a problem.
The holiday season isn’t the only time to think of giving back. In these hard pressed financial times, it may be easier to give of your time than to make a cash donation. Have you considered being a volunteer? For those of you thinking, what’s in it for me? I have one word for you plenty!
Where do you find volunteer opportunities? A good place to start is the website volunteermatch.org. By putting in a location (NY, NY) and trying out a few different key words such as fashion, sewing, retail business, small business and the word intern, numerous volunteer opportunities were displayed around the NYC area. These included working in public relations, IT, media/communications, event planning and web development/web design. These opportunities appeared at a myriad of organizations including the Japan Society, Dress for Success, the Police Museum and the International Hostels.
Remember the question, what’s in it for me? Being a volunteer can help to answer one of the most common questions I hear from my students. How do I get a job as an intern? It’s a great way to gain experience and lead to a paying job in the future. (Sometimes where you were a volunteer.) And, living in the NY area, the second most common question I hear from people I know… how do I meet people? You get to spend time with like-minded individuals giving of their time for a cause or organization that means something to them. It’s one of the best ways to network and meet people that I know.
If you are writing the snappy stuff of Hot Topics Insider – or if you’re the casual reader – you just may want to know how to use WordPress.
WordPress is about as hot as a summer sun gets when it comes to Content Management Systems for web sites. And it happens to be what is used to make and manage the pages here on Hot Topics Insider.
On July 28th at 7PM I’ll be doing a one hour webinar. Here’s a little video of just a few of things I will be demonstrating.
If you know a little XHTML (HTML is fine too) then you are good for this class but don’t take it unless you have some comfort with that.
The course is required if you are working on a Web Design Certificate through The Enterprise Center. Heck, I think it should be required if all you do is surf the web. it’s that important.
CSS is all about a web page’s style, layout and typography. CSS is about making great web sites!!
Just A Few Things You Will Learn
* Layout pages without tables (Yippee!!)
* How to set font-sizes in pixels or em units
* How to create modern navigation interfaces
* How to use background images
* A quick look into the future of CSS – that’s CSS3
I just got back from the AICI (Association of Image Consultants International) annual conference in Orlando and feel energized and ready to ramp up my image business! The AICI conference always gives me a booster-shot business-wise, as it provides an excellent opportunity to share ideas and techniques with consultants from around the world. After all, some of the best take-aways come not from a book or classroom, but from each other!
That said, I did attend some really phenomenal workshops and will enjoy sharing some of the highlights in the weeks to come. The one that an immediate impact was called “Blogging and Writing Your Way to Expert Status.” It was presented by Imogen Lamport, AICI CIP from Melbourne (www.bespokeimage.com.au) . She’s one of the most successful Image Consultants in Australia – not to mention lovely person and so incredibly generous with her information…something I really appreciate as an image educator!
Here are some of Imogen’s suggestions for articles or blog posts (as well as some of my own):
Current events (the Royal Wedding was a blogger’s dream!)
Client questions (is it appropriate to wear sleeveless tops to the office, white after Labor Day, etc.)
Movies (Bill Cunningham New York, the YSL movie)
Inspiration from museum exhibits (isn’t the FIT museum just fab-u-lous for that?)
Seasonal challenges (how to look great when the temperature heats up)
Celebrity style (who wore it best, how to achieve the look, etc.)
Your favorite picks (5 favorite shopping web sites, tote bags, makeup items etc.)
Comments on a famous fashion quote (“Fashions fade, style is eternal.” – YSL)
Topics covered in image or style books (how to dress slimmer, on a budget, for an interview, etc.)
Something you’ve learned about in one of your FIT classes
I was grateful for all of the suggestions because, let’s face it… sometimes the well runs dry!
Do you have other suggestions? If so, please share! After all, isn’t that what writing in a public forum is all about?!
BTW, next year’s AICI Conference is May 17-20, 2012 in Hawaii. Talk about a marriage of business and pleasure!
Sooner or later you are going to be hearing about Web 3.0 if you haven’t already.
Just when you were getting comfortable with Web 2.0 now along comes the next incarnation of the online communications experience. As you might expect we’re not talking just about desktops and laptops but all sorts of mobile devices that you know about or are about to be launched.
Although it was never called Web 1.0 those bad old days were marked by half baked browsers that should never have been launched and design practices that were the best they could be given the state of the art of the time. Gray page backgrounds, blue links and black text got it all started almost 20 years ago.
It took me awhile to figure out what Web 2.0 was. People were saying it was about social media and interpersonal communications. The best way I can describe 2.0 is what it gave us – the social networks, blogs, online communities and tons of video.
Web 3.0? Given the coming updates to HTML and CSS it will radically change what we think of as “the web.”
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Here are some of Imogen’s suggestions for articles or blog posts (as well as some of my own):
Themocracy