Ken Burke introduces the portal designer, described as a content management system (CMS) integral for designing website pages. He outlines that the course will be divided into multiple lessons for manageability, starting with basic to moderate features, while advanced features will be covered in a subsequent lesson. Ken explains that under the "portal" tab, users can access the portal designer, which is broken up into four main sections: "pages," "groups," "landing pages," and "delivery pages." Each section deals with different aspects of site content, including automatically generated category pages, hidden categories for things like landing pages, and templates for courses, documents, and other content types. Ken also mentions the "accounts" and "e-commerce" sections, as well as the templating system that allows for customization of pages. Ken proceeds with a hands-on demonstration, showing how to create and assign templates to pages and how to use widgets, the building blocks of the portal's pages. He introduces the "property" tabs that control widget behavior and highlights the use of padding, margins, and background options for customization. Ken covers adding rich text, working with headers, and adjusting settings for mobile display optimization. Various widgets are also discussed, including feature cards, carousels, and HTML placeholders, highlighting their use for creating dynamic and engaging pages. Lastly, Ken previews the advanced course, hinting at topics like creating complex headers, detailed page layouts with rows and columns, and more intricate customization options. He encourages experimentation and assures users that more complicated tasks will be covered in the advanced lessons. The lesson emphasizes saving work frequently to avoid loss and concludes by inviting questions and feedback.