Quite honestly, making dynamic HTML pages is not a task for beginners. To use dHTML you have to be familiar with three different technologies: HTML, stylesheets, and JavaScript. It's the interaction between these three that make pages dynamic. So lesson one is going to be review day. Your assignment is to brush up on each of these tools so you feel comfortable with them. They aren't that difficult, but you at least need a good grasp of each one's syntax.
For JavaScript, I recommend reading the tutorial by everyone's favorite Webmonkey scientist, Thau. You should especially pay attention to the Day 2 lesson about variables, Day 3 on the Document Object Model, Day 4 concerning loops and arrays, and finally, Thau's passing mention of manipulation of objects by reference when he talks about forms.
To review cascading stylesheets, you should read Patrick's introduction to stylesheets to get comfortable with the syntax. Also take a look at my article on CSS positioning - that's how we'll lay out all of our pieces.
On the HTML side, you should be familiar with <div> and <span> tags as well as downloadable fonts.
Intimidated by the list? Don't be. Like most professors, I don't expect you to read and memorize all this material. Just give it a once-over, make sure you are familiar with it, and know where it is. If you get to something you don't understand, you'll know where to look it up.
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