CIS89A - 1. Getting Started
Getting started - Welcome!
- All web pages are built using a few essential elements. Through practice coding projects, reading and discussions, you will learn to develop entire web sites and control the appearance, formatting and contents of your sites using these elements.
Webmaking - More than just coding, webmaking is the act of creating, understanding, and promoting content on the Web
- The key skills of web development are teamwork, attention to detail, debugging, project management, distributed version control, the agile process, accessibility and usability, user needs analysis, user testing, and much more. You will have an opportunity to practice all of these as well.
This a 4.5 unit course, so you should expect to spend 12-18 hours on course work each week. The activities can be completed throughout the week. Don't try to do all the work at one time. Spread the work out through the week.
Learning outcomes
- explore the HTML language and the associated CSS formatting and element structures
- use the basic HTML elements for a simple web page
Keywords
- HTML, CSS, web, internet, element, tag, formatting, hypertext, markup language
Reading guide
- What is the origin of the HTML structure?
- Who is Tim Berners-Lee?
- What is the World Wide Web Foundation?
- Who controls the HTML and CSS standardization?
- Why is standardization important?
- Why do the HTML and CSS standards change? What is the process for making changes?
Contents
Assignments
NOTE: To remain enrolled in this course, ALL these assignments, activities and discussions must be completed by the due date for Module 1.
For each topic, there are a number of activities listed. These are all related to web development - coding practice, examples of design, user interface, accessibility, development tools and industry knowledge.
Assignments - overviews, descriptions, activities, discussion prompts, references, etc. are listed together on separate web pages for each Module. Links to the module pages are located in the Canvas Modules outline section with all the links for that module. To display the Modules outline, click on the Modules link in the left navigation menu on the main Canvas course page.
- Due Dates : ALL activities - discussions, quizzes, assignments, for a module are due on the due date for the module. See Syllabus or Canvas Calendar for dates.
- College-level writing :Your responses to all assignments will be graded for college-level writing. Spelling and grammar errors will result in deductions.
- For full credit for discussion participation, complete and thoughtful replies must demonstrate original thinking and personal experience. Late submissions may be accepted for partial credit. An extension may be granted if requested prior to the due date.
Discussion participation
- Review - Just read what others have posted - No comments or reply required. There are good resources here if you are interested in learning more about the topic.
- Reply / Respond / Comment - Discussion participation - Post to this discussion with additional questions or comments.
Here are the activities for this module.
- Read the CIS89A: Web Page Development - Syllabus. There is a lot of important information in the syllabus including participation expectations and due dates for assignments. Please confirm that you have read the entire Syllabus and agree with everything in the I Read the Syllabus assignment. Note one specific item that you need to know to be successful in this course. If you have questions, please ask.
Important: This counts as having attended the first day of class.
- Learn about the Canvas course management system and online education. Complete the Online Education Center Orientation. Submit Online Orientation assignment.
. Other resources : Using Canvas . Canvas Resource Library for Students provides links to other DeAnza resources. Canvas Student Guide provides in-depth information about the Canvas learning management system.
- Introduce yourself to your classmates. Write a brief introduction in 140 characters or less.
For example, here is my introduction.
Valerie Taylor - always learning something new, sharing important and interesting ideas
Add 2-3 sentences telling us about you. What are your strengths? Are you interested in art, music, computer games, travel, cooking? What can we learn from you? Why you are taking this course and what do you hope to learn in the class? Post your introduction as a Reply to the Introductions and expectations discussion.
This is also an opportunity to meet classmates with similar interests. Ask others about their introductions using the "Reply" link to follow-up.
Add a picture to your Canvas profile. Go to My profile setting, select Edit profile, and add a picture. This will show up as the little picture next to your discussion posts.
- Visitor and Resident - Read the article or view the video or listen the podcast interview with David White. Residents are contributors, not just consumers of content. How important is it that "anyone" can write / publish to the web? What can be done to ensure that "everyone" can be found? Whose responsibility is this? Post a brief summary of your thoughts and questions to the Visitor and Residents discussion. Review 2 others.
- Think about what you already know about the topic - Web Development. Write a sentence or two about this in the I know... discussion.
- Complete the Getting Started survey. This will help determine how quickly we move through the course and how many related topics to explore along the way. This is an introductory course, so we will start at the very beginning and work up to more complex web page development. There are more challenging projects for students who already know how to build basic web pages and want to learn more advanced techniques and technologies.
- Textbook - Read HTML and CSS Visual Quickstart Guide, Ninth Edition. Casabona.
* Introduction . Chapter 1 What Are HTML and CSS? . Chapter 3 HTML Syntax . AND Chapter 11 Introduction to CSS
NOTE: Online Content. Your purchase of this Visual Quickstart Guide includes online materials, code samples and video tutorials provided by way of your Account page on peachpit.com. You must register your purchase on peachpit.com in order to access them - see Introduction for details.
- How do Browsers Work? There are a number of resources listed in the Media section below, or search and find more information. Watch videos, read descriptions. Understand the basics of how browsers work. This may be new to you. Get the general idea for how web pages are constructed and displayed. Learn the names of the basic components.
- Browser check - Everything for CIS89A happens on the web. Not only do we publish on the web, but many of the tools we use exist as web applications rather than installed programs on our computers. De Anza Online Education recommends all students use the newest version of Firefox, Chrome or Edge when accessing Canvas. For CIS89A, we will also be using a number of HTML5 functions. Always keep your preferred browser up to date.
Check out your browser with the openSUSE html5test. If necessary, download and install a browser that works well with Canvas and HTML5.
https://html5test.opensuse.org/
- First Web Site - See the first web page ever CERN information https://info.cern.ch/ produced by the CERN lab.
- Professional web pages - Find a web page with a nice layout and good functionality. In the Learn from the Pros discussion, post a link to a web page that you like and give a brief description of the overall design and elements of the page. Make a note of this page as you will be learning some best practices of professional web development by analyzing the source code and evaluating the design of the site you selected throughout the course.
Review the pages suggested by 3 other students. What did you think about the pages they selected? Do you have any questions about their selection and summary? Think critically about site design and how these sites are constructed.
NOTE: Review means just that - read the description, follow the link and look around - that is a "review" for the purposes of this course. If you have a question or something to add to the discussion, you can reply to the post. Otherwise a reply is NOT necessary. The discussion is a handy way to share links to interesting sites. The objective is to visit many different examples of web sites, web-based applications, online tools and current technologies.
- CSS and HTML - HTML is for content. All web pages have HTML source code. CSS defines styling and presentation display. Today Web Developers need to use both. So we will be learning HTML and CSS together starting NOW. With all the new and improved access to information on the internet, it is essential to develop websites using the powerful features of both HTML and CSS. For ALL coding projects, use a .html file for content and place all styling in the linked .css file.
See Textbook Chapter 1 What Are HTML and CSS? AND Chapter 11 Introduction to CSS as well as resources in the Selected Media below.
- View Page Source - Peek behind a website display view to see the HTML and CSS code used to create the website you see in your browser. Most browsers provide this function. This may seem really scary now. Just do it and see what's there. It is important to know HOW to view the source code. You will need to look at the actual html and css code for pages throughout the course.
For example, using Firefox to view the "source" - the HTML for the page - From the top menu Tools > Web Developer > Page Source. Or right-click and select View Page Source. When you activate the Page source option, all the behind-the-scenes HTML is displayed.
* Display any webpage in your browser window.
* Find the "display source" or tool to show the source code.
* Look through the HTML coding and see if you can determine how the HTML tags are being used.
Cascading Style Sheet .css file - also look for links to the external stylesheet file. link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" This statement should be in the head section of the HTML source. Follow the link and look at the source code for this file too. This is a shared description for the display of any pages that link to this .css file.
Complete the View HTML and CSS source code quiz.
- CSS Demonstration - CSS Zen Garden shows the power of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS provides control over the style of a hypertext document. The content HTML on all these "sites" is the SAME. Only the CSS file is different. View some of the Examples to change the CSS style sheet and page display. The HTML remains the same.
Look at the source code of each page. Look for the link to the .css file in the head element of the web page. This is the connection between the .html file and the styling information in the .css file.
Download the Zen Garden HTML code file to your computer. The file name is index.html. Open index.html in your browser. This is what the Zen Garden page looks like with no CSS, just your browser's default styling.
Post a brief comment about your experience in the CSS Experience discussion.
- First Coding Project - see Coding Project details below
- Module 1 in review - The first week of any class is pretty chaotic, so this is a chance for you to stop for a few minutes and think about the CIS89A Web Page Development course. What was one pleasant surprise? What is one question that didn't get answered? In 1-2 sentences, describe your CIS89A 1. Getting Started experience. Submit your comments and questions as the Module 1 in review assignment. Be sure to click the "Submit" link as well - this puts your answer in the "ready for grading" status.
Due Dates : ALL activities - discussions, quizzes, assignments, for a module are due on the due date for the module.
Coding Project
CodeCraft Works is a web-based tool that lets you edit and run HTML and CSS code online. There is nothing to download. Use with any browser. We are only going to be developing Simple websites that use html and css. There are more features within Codecraft Works that are beyond the scope of the course. AND it is free to use when you create a CodeCraft Works account.
https://codecraftworks.com/
If you have questions about Coderaft Works, please ask. This is intended as an easy, fun activity so you can "create" a web page in the first week of class. There is a lot more to web development, so keep this simple. Make a few small changes and make sure it continues to display ok.
For this module we will be creating an account, creating a new project, copying an existing project example or template, coding html and viewing, coding css styling, saving, sharing and submitting your coding projects, downloading to your computer. Complete all the activities listed.
Learn the CodeCraft Works basic tools. Explore the site.
- Read the About page - we will be using the HTML and CSS editors
- Review the Codecraft Works Editor Quick Start Guide
- Create a CodeCraft Works account.
- View the Six-Word Summer sample project.
- Create a new web project. Then make your own copy of the Six-Word Summer starter project that you can modify and rearrange as you wish. All the html and css code for the "starter" project
https://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/CIS89A_Learning_Web_Design/6-word_code - Copy the index.html code into the html edit pane. Copy the style.css code into the css edit pane. Check that your preview looks like the example. Change the text on the index.html page. Keep this simple for now. Save your project. You have done it. You have created a web page!
- Style - style.css - CodeCraft Works automatically sets up an external Cascading Stylesheet style.css file for you in your project in a separate editor pane. This is where the style descriptions go. Although there are other places to define styling, using this external stylesheet is an important part of the CIS89A Web Development course.
- In the style.css file pane, try out different values for the #banner properties - background-color, font-family, width, padding, margin-top. Codecraft Works provides help as you start to change the options. Include comments in your code - the format for comments is different in .css code.
Look at the code in your project index.html for the link to this style.css file. This is the connection that browsers will use to determine how to display your coding projects.
- Share - Display your project. In Settings, make sure your project is Public. Then Click Share in the top menu bar. Copy the web address of this display. Paste the web address and post it along with a short summary (2-3 sentences) about your "test drive" experience to the Coding project discussion.
Help: How to Create and Share Links
- To submit coding projects, provide the "Share" link to your Codecraft Work coding project.
- ALSO Submit the Share web address link for your Codecraft Works coding project to the 1. Coding project assignment. There is a rubric describing points for the coding assignment. Yes, this is the same as what you shared in the discussion. The discussion is for the class to see. The assignment is for detailed feedback to you.
All the html and css code for the "starter" project
https://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/CIS89A_Learning_Web_Design/6-word_code
Examples Failed to load RSS feed from http://www.diigo.com/rss/user/vtaylor/x1project: Error parsing XML for RSS
If there is a temporary problem with the resource updates. Resources for all modules are available here.
Link to list of resources for this module
https://byxbee.wordpress.com/2024/03/24/cis89a-resources-24-4/
The course follows the textbook.
In each module, there is a reference to the relevant textbook chapters as well as to online tutorials and reference guides listed in the Media section.
Textbook - Read HTML and CSS Visual Quickstart Guide, Ninth Edition. Casabona.
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 What Are HTML and CSS?
- Chapter 3 HTML Syntax
- Chapter 11 Introduction to CSS
Also
- Code from the textbook
- Videos - to access, register for the web edition
- the collection of different websites around the world, containing different information shared via local servers(or computers).
- commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
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Coding Projects
- create an account Log In - Enter your email address . no 4-digit code . email is sent with link to Sign In to Codecraft Works . click on the link . Welcome account created Dashboard . Create a Web Project
WEB LITERACY
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BASICS
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CSS - Cascading StyleSheets
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HTML / CSS TUTORIALS
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Web Design
While the course does TEACH some "web design" skills, you will LEARN a lot about web design throughout the course. Many of the course activities include research and accessing existing web sites. Every site you visit for any course activity is an opportunity for you to practice your web site review and evaluation skills. In addition to the explicit activity requirements, critically examine every site you visit. What is the overall effectiveness of the site? What were the important elements of the user experience? Navigation? Content information presentation? Design - fonts, color, use of white space? Are these appropriate to the purpose of the web site? There are few "rules" so it is important that you learn web design from these evaluations. If there are features that you like but don't know how to produce, spend some time reviewing the page source as well. If you were the site developer's critical friend, what would be your feedback? Discuss these with the class. We are all here to learn.
Conventional HTML and CSS development
If you have web development experience and are familiar with the DeAnza CIS Voyager development environment, you are welcome to complete all the coding projects as HTML and CSS files uploaded to your Voyager public html directory. To submit your coding projects, provide the link to the main html page for that coding project, which should include a link to your associated css file.
Ready for more challenge?
If you already have experience using HTML and want to work ahead, please do. All the assignments are open throughout the course. If you have questions about more advanced topics and assignments, please ask.
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