We started Week 1 going 90 miles per hour, with the vocabulary pre-test, but I hope we ended the week at a more reasonable pace. As I mentioned in class, some of you who have experience building websites may find the next few class periods moving a little slower than you’d like, but trust me—you’ll have plenty of opportunities to push yourselves in the coming weeks. And if you feel like you aren’t being challenged enough, please come see me and we’ll find ways to make these introductory assignments valuable for you.
Next week, we will focus on the basics of HTML and CSS, using the online résumé assignment to learn some of web design’s foundational concepts. On Tuesday, we will continue our discussion about FTP and setting up a workflow for building websites, then we will work on applying basic XHTML tags to a pre-existing document. Please read Hour 2 and Hour 3 in the Sams book before you come to class and bring an electronic version of your current résumé to class. You can make modifications to the content of your résumé as we work on this first assignment, but the version you bring to class on Tuesday should be as close to “finished” as possible.
On Thursday, we will learn how to link cascading style sheets (CSS) to HTML pages and practice applying simple style declarations to our résumé pages. Your only homework for Thursday is to read Hour 4 in the Sams book. A word of warning: Hour 4 is when the textbook begins to get more complex, so you’ll need to spend enough time with each chapter to really understand the new concepts before you come to class each day. Yes, the book is arranged into 24 one-hour lessons, but you might need to spend more than one hour working through each chapter.
By the end of Week 2, you should have a well-coded résumé and the makings of a well-styled résumé. If you’re doing all the reading and paying attention in class and you’re still feeling lost, please come see me during my office hours. The material in this class will only get more complex as the semester progresses, so if things aren’t clicking for you, now is the time to address the problem.
If you have any questions about Week 2, or about anything else related to our class, leave a comment below or send me an email. Otherwise, I’ll see you on Tuesday. Have a great weekend!