Trainers Talk Tech

I received a note from one of the participants in my webinar series that went something like this:

"I've attended your webinar on eLearning software and it was great. But really, how do I get started. What do I do first."

Well, let's start at the start as Dr. Seuss might say.

Building eLearning for web distribution requires a knowledge of web technologies. Forget the training part. Forget the learner for just one second. If you REALLY want to get started you need to set up a web page and web hosting. Here is my recipe for setting up a web page:

Follow up:

1. Goto www.godaddy.com and find a domain name
   
   
2. Search for a web site name you like. If you find one that works (www.yourkewlsite.com) then purchase it. Yep, go ahead. Its usually $9.95 per year! PER YEAR! That's less than fast food. Do it. Be brave. A friend of mine did his last name and then 'house'. In my case, that would be www.tothhouse.com. Funny, but very cool.
   
   
3. Find a host. A web host is simply you renting space on a web server. Where is that web server located? Who cares. For your purposes, you want PHP, mySQL, eMail and FTP access. That's pretty much it. You can find them cheap now a days. I use www.phpwebhosting.com for my businesses, and www.hostgator.com for this blog and for my Drupal Experiment at www.myelearningguru.com. Both services are only $9.95 a month, and Host Gator allows for unlimited parked URLs. That mean I can pay $10 and have ALL my web sites hosted in one place. As soon as I have the time, my business web sites are moving to Host Gator. Pay your host with a credit card. Choose the yearly hosting options and you pay all at once, but you are set for a year or more. That's another $90 or so.
   
   
4. The next part is tricky, but easy. Your host will give you a name server. If you want to read about name severs, here is the link to wikipedia. But basically, the name server address is your sites formal address in the world of web pages. You have to tell the world that when someone types in your web site name, it should go to that server.
   
   You need to tell your domain name registry (www.godaddy.com) which server to go to when someone types in your URL (your name server).
   
   
5. When you set up your hosting, you will get an email that has two name servers listed. The look like this: NS1.hosting.com, NS2.hosting.com. You will take these two name server names and change add them to your account.
   
   Log in to your account at Go Daddy. Find the spot to change your name servers. On Go Daddy, its under Domains ->Domain Manager. Links are under Name Servers.
   
   
6. Now, Go Daddy and Network Solutions freak out when you change domain name servers. Ignore their freak out. They just want you to pay for hosting through them. Let them cry as you leave their protected nest.
   
   
7. The next thing you will want to do is set up your email and FTP accounts. Both PHPWebHosting and HostGator have great admin tools that walk you through it. You get FTP auto set up with both, but you have set it up with an FTP program.
   
   
8. What's FTP? File Transfer Protocol. When you surf into a web site, you are using HTTP : HyperText Transfer Protocol. This is basically a request to view content. You view it in your web browser so all is good. Point to your favorite URL with FTP instead of HTTP, and you are requesting a transfer of data, meaning that instead of viewing, you want to download. Well, that's usually protected by a username and password. Site owners don't mind if you view the pages in a browser, but don't like it much if you download without permission. Well, FTP also allows you to upload, so setting up an FTP connection means that you are setting up credentials to upload and download to your site. Hey, its your site. Connect to it!
   
   
9. After you get FTP set up with a username and password, you need to connect up to your site with some software. I like Cute FTP and Fetch for Mac. Both are less than $30. Both let you transfer your files from your computer to your web server. By the way, Dreamweaver has built in FTP software!
   
   
10. So, we have our domain name, our hosting and we can connect with FTP. What's next? Well, its time to build your site! You can hand-code it, use Dreamweaver or another development software, upload Drupal or Moodle or Joomla or even set up blogging software on it. In fact, if you use Host Gator, it will auto install any of these with the click of a button! I recommend getting a good HTML book and start hand coding. I like Sam's and This Beginners Guide. Both will do a good job of getting you started. I'm a book guy, but if you'd rather take lessons on the web, Lynda.com rocks, and so does HTML Goodies.com.
    
    

So that's it. You have hosting and books and lessons and a web site for about $200 for the year. The hard part is figuring out what to say. I always recommend having a portfolio site. Whether you are an independent contractor or full time employee, having samples of your work all in one spot is very helpful. Having them up for the world to see may or may not be a good thing, but knowing that all your portfolio items are in one spot is a nice peace of mind.

Maybe you install b2Evolution and start a blog. Maybe you take pictures and you want to share them with your family. Maybe you want just want to have a place to practice coding eLearning. I don't know, but if we are starting at the start, getting a little piece of internet real estate is a great place to start your learning. All the design software in the world isn't going to help at all unless you have a place on the web to put it, store it and show it.

Good luck! Let me know how it goes! Be brave! Try it out! Play!