Most beginners need to spend no more than five hours to learn the basic skills necessary to edit and/or build a digital portfolio using Dreamweaver and Fireworks.

Certainly there is more to learn (as there always is), but five hours should give you the basic skills.

These basic skills are useful, transferable, and--in many cases--necessary to operate in today's digital landscape.

STEP ONE
Getting Acquainted with Dreamweaver

By the end of the first hour, you should be able to:

• change your workspace to MX settings
• use the Design View
• find Properties Inspector and Objects Inspector
• open site panel
• create a site
• create a page

STEP TWO
Tables, Text, and Links

• use tables effectively
• use text and text editing features effectively
• make relative hyperlink using Point-to-File feature
• make absolute hyperlink using Link Box feature

STEP THREE
Fireworks Basics
(Image Editing)

By the end of the third hour, you should be able to:

• use the toolbars effectively
• resize an image
• crop an image
• make a background
• save work in PNG
• export work to jpg or gif.

By the end of the fourth hour, you should be able to:

• add images (that you have edited in Fireworks) to your pages
• add a background
• use an image folder
• name and rename files
• apply some basic design concepts

By the end of the fifth hour, you should be able to:

• own a McDaniel Student Account
• FTP your Portfolio site to the McDaniel server using Dreamweaver
• FTP your Portfolio site to the McDaniel server using Internet Explorer