HOME STUDY - ASP, VB, HTML AND MORE
Learn to develop functional database driven websites
Web site development has become a huge industry, and there is high demand for developers who can bring results. IT Staff at ACS are world leaders in web site development, rest assured you will be trained by experts. This certificate teaches the most in demand web development tools like HTML, ASP.NET, Visual Basic.NET, E-commerce and Digital photography.
Career Opportunities
Web developer, Web specialist, Web programmer
Modules
Note that each module in the Certificate In Web Site Development is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
CONTENT of SELECTED MODULES
Here is an indication of lessons you will find in some of the modules:
Writing a Web Site (HTML)
- Introduction to the Internet and HTML
- The most important HTML Tags
- Simplification through HTML Construction Software
- Creating Links
- Loading a Site onto the Internet
- Adding Graphics
- Designing a Web Site that Works
- Advanced Features
E Commerce
- Introduction - what is e-commerce (more than the internet)
- Success and failure - what makes the difference
- Promotional strategies - are different on the internet
- Optimizing web site potential
- Increasing web site exposure
- Automating supply of goods, services and cash flow
- Managing constant change
- Dealing with e-commerce problems
Digital Photography
- Introduction To Digital Technology
- Equipment
- Digital Technology - Colour, resolution, sensors
- Digital Cameras
- Taking Photographs
- Scanners
- Uploading Images
- The Digital Darkroom
- Compositing & Imaging - Production & manipulation of images
- Special Effects
- Outputs & Applications- Printers, The Internet
ASP.NET
A comprehensive introduction to ASP.NET for students wishing to further develop their understanding of, and ability to creatively use the internet. By the end of this module, the student should be able to easily understand all the major aspects of ASP.NET and use it to produce their own web applications. There are 11 lessons as follows:
- Introduction
- VB.NET Essentials
- Web Forms
- Web Server Controls
- Form Validation
- Classes and Namespaces
- Creating ASP.NET Applications
- ADO.NET
- Error Handling
- Email from your Applications
- Project: Creating an Online Store
Visual Basic.NET
- Introduction
- Variables
- Understanding conditional statements
- I/O handling
- Controls and Objects – An Introduction
- Structured Programming using Modules
- Properties, methods, events & classes
- Inheritance
- Polymorphism
- Using controls
- Debugging
- Developing a complete VB.NET application
Tips for Getting Work
- Success in Web Development doesn't come from getting a qualification!
- Many of the most successful web developers do not hold university degrees
- Many I.T. degree graduates have tried and failed to develop a successful career in web development
- Success comes from what you learn, not what you qualify in
- Successful web developers need to be prepared to start at the bottom, take work wherever they can find it (even if pay is poor) and build a career from the ground up
- Few developers ever earn big money working for someone else. If you want a big income; you probably need to be self employed
- If you are going to be self employed; you need to learn business skills, develop a capacity to find clients and sell your services, and above all, have the right attitude and persistance to develop a business
- Make sure you learn the type of programming that is in demand; and that you are prepared to keep learning and staying up to date as your career rolls on.
Tips for Making Web Sites Successful
The things you need to do keep changing, there are some hints below. If you really want to learn though, you need to do a course like this certificate with an institution like ours that knows how to get the runs on the board.
1. Main Page Content should contain lots of “appropriate” searchable words. We have added varied lists of courses to the bottom of several sites which greatly increases words that can be searched on the main page. It is not as simple as copying our lists though –search engines would simply recognize these as a copy. If you add lists, they need to be synonymous but different words.
2. Proliferate the use of important Key Words. –Make a list of relevant words that people use when they search for a course or distance education. Try to include such words on the main page first; then work them into content on other pages.
3. Metatags – These are hidden words which the site visitor does not see, but search engines can identify. They are put into the pages by web site programmers. They are not as important as they once were for Google, but may still help with some other search engines.
4. Page Titles -Keep these relevant. Often all or most pages have similar titles and relatively simple titles that do not optimize rankings.
5. Content –Quantity is important, but only if it is also quality. When you write things off the net (articles, newsletters etc) add them to the web site
6. Be Different -If search engines recognize your content as being too identical to other sites.
7. Frequent changes –The site must appear to be dynamic. Search engines identify sites that change frequently. The ideal may be to change something on every page weekly, though this is often impractical.
8. Navigation should be easy. Keep words/icons that are clicked on unambiguous, visible and short and movement from place to place around a site should be logical. Pages should cross link to each other so you can move around easily and logically without needing to return to the main page.
9. Minimize clicks through –The more times a person needs to click from the main page, the less chance the page will be visited and given serious attention. Good design allows all important pages and information to be reached and read without more than one or two clicks from the main page.
10. Make it easy to take action –ACS does this with several click here features
11. Capture your visitors (e.g. Click to subscribe to newsletter) then act on what you capture. Be aware of the law though. Several countries have tight laws on how you can capture and use email addresses.
12. Pages should download fast –Include photos, but avoid large images (2-10kb images are OK; 100kb images can be a real problem).
13. Graphics –Images and colour help hold people on a site longer and encourage bookmarking…. But they need to be attractive and professional (& small downloads)
14. Colour –Warm colours (reds, browns, yellows) encourage action more than cool colours. Cool colours relax a person more than warm. Colour schemes that are different attract more attention. Contrasting colours can be used to focus attention where you want.
15. Target what you do. –You need to focus everything you do on the sort of people who are most likely to enroll in courses
16. Do Not Rely Just on the Web. -It’s a well known marketing fact that people are more inclined to buy things if they are seen in 3 or more different places. The internet can be your primary focus, but other marketing activities are needed to raise visibility in secondary places (eg. posters, advertising, trade shows, press releases, magazine articles etc) in order to provide secondary support to the internet.
Use IT expertise in conjunction with Product Expertise – We have often found that results suffer if you don’t properly marry a knowledge of I.T. with a knowledge of education and the courses you offer. Giving the work to an IT professional who is briefed on what is required may result in less than perfect selection and use of content (e.g. key words). Giving the job to an education professional with limited IT expertise may result in better choices for content, but poorer use of the content
WHY CHOOSE US?
• Reputation and Experience: using I.T. for all courses since 1982, on the internet since 1992, teaching courses online since 1995, developing our own software with in house programmers since 1998
• Industry focus: courses designed to suit industry needs and expectations
• Different focus: develop problem solving skills that make you stand out from others
• Hands on: develop practical as well as theoretical skills
• Lots of help: dedicated and knowledgeable tutors.
• Efficient: prompt responses to your questions
• Reliable: established in 1979, independent school with a solid history
• Up to date: courses under constant review
• Resources: huge wealth of constantly developing intellectual property
• Value: courses compare very favourably on a cost per study hour basis
• Student amenities: online student room, bookshop, ebooks, acs garden online resources.
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