I showed up to class a few minutes early (18 minutes?) and probably should not have strolled right in, but I did, and took a seat way in the back… Professor Tortorelli seemed really laid back – he just let me waltz right in and take a seat after saying hello and confirming I was in the right place…although early.
I realized pretty quickly that this class was already deep in the throes of a lesson, and looking to end soon. I looked up on the display and saw some basic code in Dreamweaver. Holy crap! First day, coding in Dreamweaver, hard-coding lines, rectangles and curves. These must be some upper-level geeks! “Wow…what class is this?” I thought… That class ended with a review of homework (a blog) and a couple other administrivia notes…and I realized it was the same class I was taking. AWESOME! We’re gonna code right from day-1! I’m excited.
“My group” comes in and we dive right in. Log in to our workstations, go to the shared drive and review the lesson. The coding turned into more of a copy-paste exercise, but that’s okay, I felt more at home in this hands-on environment. Ready to rock-n-roll. I also noticed the amazing array of power tools at our disposal. First time I’ve ever seen Audacity (MP3 splicer/mixer/editor) outside of my own computer. Excellent.
Prof Tortorelli also told us he’d unlock the secrets of the Illustrator Pen Tool…that, in itself, is well worth the class. The Pen Tool is still a mystery to me, after several years of tinkering in Photoshop…and I stayed away from Illustrator because of that damned Pen Tool. Bring it! I’m expecting big things from this class.