Pub Design Post

Hey all! Haven't posted in QUITE some time but here goes...

My web design goals are to make personal web pages that look professional. As a teacher, I will make sites to organize my classes and provide information for my students, and I want these sites to look professional because I believe the way your site looks says a lot about you. I love making pages that are multi-colored and visually appealing that look sleek and sophisticated yet fun and exciting, but because I haven't had much experience in web design I've had to rely on available templates at Googlepages. Using this site was fairly simple, but I found that I often had trouble with it inserting odd text that I didn't include or not formatting the way I wanted for no apparent reason...but thus is the nature of the template. I'm looking forward to learning web design so I will be able to create pages that reflect my personality and vision, even if it will entail a little more work. As far as tools for my own work, I only have IE on my personal computer, and I don't have any good design programs due to my computer's age (4 years old...I know time for an update), my current financial situation (a broke college student much like the rest of you), and my recent involvement in design classes. I would love to get a new computer early next year (preferably a Mac), Dreamweaver, Photoshop, a new digital camera and videocamera to assist in designing and creating interactive webpages for my future classroom.

Links to my previously created webpage:
http://mollymcallisterportfolio.googlepages.com/