Every semester a few of us promise students that their course site will still be readable after they graduate, and every few years a platform migration quietly proves us wrong. This workshop is the practical answer: build a course site that is a folder of files, hosts anywhere, and needs no database to stay alive.
We will start from an empty directory and end with a published, accessible site containing a syllabus, a reading schedule, and a student work gallery. No prior command-line experience is assumed — we pair up, and there will be two facilitators circulating the whole time.
What we'll cover
- Choosing a generator that a non-technical colleague can still edit next year
- Writing content in Markdown and keeping the syllabus as the single source of truth
- Accessibility defaults: heading order, contrast, and alt text that is worth reading
- Publishing to CUNY Academic Commons and to a plain static host
- Handing the project off — archiving, licensing, and student consent
What to bring
A laptop you can install software on, and a syllabus you are willing to take apart. If you would rather work from a sample, we will have one ready.
