BP14_Flash CS4

   For my final post about my experience learning Flash, I have to say that, even the beginner course that I took went over my head as soon as Todd, the presenter, started talking about using Action Script 3.0. I have a mental block when it comes to code, very similar to the mental block I had for Algebra in high school!
    I created our school website from scratch  7 years ago using Front Page. My principal constantly received phone calls about how wonderful the site was, and some even shared ideas about how to expand the site using teacher web pages. Front Page was a very easy-to-use web designer that the school district supported. Other web masters used Dreamweaver and posted via ftp, but I was satisfied with the capabilities of FrontPage. Then, 2 years ago, we got some new support staff in the IT department that wanted to migrate to SharePoint. Those of us who previewed it didn't like it. The design tools were not as fun to use as FrontPage, and after all, it was for an elementary school!

Screen shot of school website default page

    The new IT guys developed a CSS, or cascading style sheet for each school to use as a template. The district was now looking for uniformity as well as accessibility. Some of my dynamic web content could no longer be used since it could not be read by a screen reader for a person with disabilities. I felt my creativity was being challenged, and I ignored the polite suggestions of a redesign. But after 2 years of this, the district became more insistent that I change over. I agreed, and this is the resulting website: Griffin Elementary. (I DID create the blended picture of the eagle looking over our school!)
     When training to use the CSS in  my site, the IT guys kept talking about "the code". How code had changed from HTML to XTML and how CSS was now the most popular. They had us open the template in the code and I got nauseous! Letters and parentheses and numbers took me back to my high school algebra class, that I know I only passed because my teacher played poker on Wednesday nights with my Dad.
     So it was earlier today when I was trying learn about Action Script 3.0 in Flash. Definitely must learn it since we will be using it in a few months, but I have to repeat those videos! I am confident that with determination, I can learn Flash, even if it takes me 3 or 4 times viewing the videos!