New to Web Design - Need Help!

[eflom19]

I am a graphic artist for a casino and we are now taking on the responsibility of maintaining our own website "in-house", therefore I would be responsible for that. Since I know nothing about web design and maintenance, I am looking into to taking an online Web Design course through Gatlin Education. It is 255 hours and covers web design, Flash, Dreamweaver, HTML, XHTML, CSS and Java Script.

Has anyone heard of this company - Gatlin Education - and know if this is a good route to take for a beginner? Our website is already designed and managed by an outside company, and I'm sure my duties would include re-designing it and maintaining it. I thought I would go the educational route because I am really not good at "self-teaching" when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Any input on where would be a good place for me to start would be great!

[Nate1]

Im completing a Bachelor of Computing systems, almost finished, Ive learnt about all those topics in classes, lectures ... but practice using them is the key

The most important lesson Ive learnt is to use the internet (google), if you have access to dreamweaver and other tools you only need to know what to look for and you can find the answer, besides spending time at courses which may be good, a good book and a bit of reading will also teach you heaps.

Books I like and use all the time:

CSS,DHTML & AJAX visual Quickstart Guide
Dynamic DHTML the Definitive Reference

If your using PHP or ASP theres a mountain a reference Material on the web

and I think theres video tutorials on Flash around.

Depending on how confident you are you might get by without a course, or maybe just a starter course.

[Ferret]

Bookmark this website! I've learned more here in the last few months than I have from books in the same time period. I enjoy learning by doing. I did take some courses at my University, but it ended up being more for credit than for actual new knowledge.

The trick is to create and create and create. More experience with real issues of web design is key. Books are great to get started and as reference, but they can only take you so far.

[ray326]

Is your site just brochure-ware or is it a business application? If it's the latter then you need a lot of training before you take it over.