User:Vtaylor/CIS89A Learning Web Design/2. summary

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Summary 2. Basic HTML

Great work on the 2. Basic HTML assignments. Especially for those who are new to HTML and CSS, these are terrific coding projects with the basics. It is great to see that so many of you are really contributing to making this a terrific learning experience for everyone.

When you look at web sites - see how many make use of these few structures. They are everywhere, and now you know how to do this!

• Learning to Learn - Learning Literacy is a DeAnza initiative to promote lifelong learning. You can learn anything, anytime anywhere if you have a few basic learning literacy skills. We introduce these skills and provide practice throughout this course in addition to the regular course content.

• Your Responsibility - The key element of Learning to learn is taking responsibility for your own learning. Questions are good. However, some of you are asking good questions that you can find the answers to yourself right now. I am happy to talk about your questions and help you find ways to find the answers yourself. That's my job.

• Grading - As you submit work through the module, it may be graded before the deadline if it satisfies the requirements for that activity as described in the Assignments for the module.

• Discussion posts - How much is enough information to include in your discussion submissions? Usually a link to a resource (if required) and 3-4 sentences that provide some specific information about the discussion topic. The module Assignments description of the discussion activity outlines the specific requirements and may include prompt questions. These should not be a complete rewrite of all the information in the resource. Your comments should let others know enough for them to decide they want to learn more. Like a movie trailer.

• Questions - Please let me know if you have questions. It is usually faster to find answers for yourself. Practice using search and picking a few keywords to find something helpful. This is an important skill to develop. But don't get too frustrated. Try 2-3 searches with several keywords. Also, look at results on the second or third page of results. Look to see if there are other keywords that get better search results and try again with these keywords. If you are still having trouble finding an answer, I am happy to help.

Coding projects

Some things to watch for in Basic HTML

• Writing code - You can use any text editor. You are not limited to using Glitch. The requirement is to submit your coding projects as their web address, preferably the view that a visitor sees.. The html and css files must be in a web-accessible directory on a network server. How you accomplish that is up to you. Glitch handles some of that process for you.

• Each coding project should be a new project file so you focus on the requirements for the module elements and attributes. Most of the requirements should be visible on the page display. That way, we know that you are using the tags correctly in your code.

• head element - the head element is information for the browser. The title element is displayed in the top of the browser window and is used in the search engine listings. Replace the default Glitch "Hello!" with your own.

• head title tag - The title tag text appears at the top of the frame around the display window. It is also used in the page summary displayed by search engines. Glitch provides a default. Change the text to represent your project.

• Nesting lists - If you include a list within an ordered list (ol), you probably won't get what you expect. The numbered list includes the list items from the included list in the numbering even if they don't have numbers. Some code checkers flag this as an error.

• Comments - Include comments in your HTML and CSS code. Comments are documentation. As you build larger sites, it is important to included notes about your work. You are making a lot of decisions as you write your code that guide your choices. Include the information as comments. This information will be a big help to you or someone else who has to make changes to the code in the future.

• The comment formats are different. Comments are considered important by professional web developers who may need to update their code months after they or someone else developed it.

• Cascading styles - The browser uses the style that is closest to the content. If there are style definitions for the paragraph (p) tag in the css file and in a style tag in the html head and in the p tag in the html body, the browser "cascades" through these and would display the paragraph using the style in the p tag - closest to the content to be displayed. This provides a lot of flexibility. It can save a lot of coding and changing is styling is shared throughout the site.

• Working ahead - You can work ahead if you want to. Check back to discussions when modules are current to see what others are contributing as shared work is an important part of the course.

• Advanced students - Please respect the class format and structure. Since in online course I am not present with you to observe your actual skills, you may not use any constructs beyond those discussed so far in the course. Please limit your CSS to one stylesheet. If you want to jump ahead, please create separate new projects. You can submit future projects early if you wish. There is also a separate Advanced topics, other interests discussion where you can share ideas and request code reviews.

Coming up... Module 3. From here to there - Links

Linking - the ability to embed hyperlinks in pages, is one of the most significant features of the web. The idea that a viewer could click on a word or a picture and immediately be taken to another page that provided additional relevant information was revolutionary.

If you have questions, please ask.

Enjoy this learning experience and share with the class!

..vt