Unit One

The Language of the Web

First, let me explain how this course is organized...

Note: WebCT has "Learning Modules" and this course is organized to make full use of them.

You should always start from the course Home Page. Pick the Unit you want to work on. After you click on it, the browser will open with a main page for the unit, and on the left side there will be a listing of hotlinks that make up the learning module.

Every week, start at the top of the weekly unit's list of links and work your way down. That way you will cover everything in order and ensure that you don't miss anything in the lesson.

Class starts on August 23 and ends on Dec 18th. That gives us 16 weeks to conduct the course.

That seems like a lot of time, but we have a lot to cover and time will go by quickly. The very last date that I will accept any work for this class is midnight Dec 18th.

I have actually cut the required content to the bare minimum of what you need to know because this is only a 2 unit class; however, I will give you the opportunity to cover several advanced topics on an optional basis. Don't worry, you can get full credit for the course without studying the optional topics, but you can get extra credit if you do them.

The first eleven units of the course, we will cover one chapter per week in the textbook. Almost all assignments, discussions, assessments, and projects are due 1 week after they are first assigned. The due date is always noted in the WebCT system on the home page of the course.

In Unit 12 we will cover the first half of Chapter 12 and Unit 13 will cover the second half of that chapter. (It's a pretty long chapter.)

In Unit 14 we will cover Templates which will help you to organize all the info and skills you have learned into a very attractive website.

The final two weeks the course will be used for two things:

1. creating the final project. (Everybody)
2. covering chapters 13 and 14 of the text. (Optional)

During Units 1 through 13 we will follow a standard format. For each unit there will be:

1. a reading assignment with a page or two of comments from me, to help you get the most out of the reading and to give you any special instructions for exercises that are due.
2. one of more discussion items. (Most weeks.)
3. a quiz on the reading.
4. an exercise that you will turn in to me via WebCT or that you will post to your personal website. After Unit 4, you must always post your work on your website.

During the last three weeks things will not be as structured. As you might expect, the final project will be to design and post a complete website. After all, that's why you took the course!

There will also be two additional chapters to cover in the textbook for those who want to do so for extra credit, but those chapters are totally optional.

During the course, I will check email frequently, so if you have questions, I will try to give you a speedy answer. However, I will need to limit detailed questions and answers to topics that we cover in this course.

(A person could easily take 50 or more units of web design courses covering the wide array of web technologies that are in use today on the Internet. We are only doing the first two units of those 50 possible units, so we need to stick to the basics.)

That is not to say I won't answer your questions on outside topics in general terms. I will be happy to give you advice on resources where you can go to find additional info. I just can't get involved in personally resolving specific technical issues on techniques and skills that are outside the scope of the course--such as Javascript, asp.net, Coldfusion, Flash, mySQL, etc. Those things are in a different course.

Due Dates:

The discussion entries, the quiz, and the assignment should all be done by the due date listed on the home page of the course. If you are delayed for any reason, send me an email to request an extension on the date. Any assignment that is late without a pre-arranged extension will be marked down 1 point for each day it is late. Why do I have this policy? I have taught this course many times. Students who get behind almost always fail the course. I don't want that to happen to you!

Personal Web Site:

Let's face it. If you are going to do web pages and make web sites, you need to know how to post the files you create onto a real-world, on-the-Internet, webserver.

If all you have is a bunch of files on your computer, you don't really have a web page. Your files have to be visible on the Internet for everyone to see them before you can say the job is done.

So, what are your options?

• Can you do this "on the cheap?" Maybe you can. Some Internet Service Providers (ISP's) will set you up with a very basic, small website for absolutely no charge other than your regular charge for Internet service. In San Diego, Cox has this service. (If you get your internet access from Time Warner or use DSL, you will have to work with your provider directly to see if they offer a free service. Most don't)
• Is there a better way? Yes, there is. There are 3rd-party Internet web-hosting companies that will set you up with a professional-grade website. (On the course home page there is a folder that describes several Internet Service Providers that I or my colleagues or previous students have used personally with no problems. Please review this folder soon.)
• Of course these places usually aren't free, but they are not too expensive either. They cost about $7-$12 per month on a year long contract. You not only get a web site, you get your own domain name (such as: http://www.craftwebproject.com).
  
• This sort of site will give you a place to store all your web creations and set up a "digital portfolio"; it will allow you to have your own email address such as bill@craftwebproject.com; and when you are ready, it will allow you to hook your pages up to a database and become interactive. What at deal!
• I use Lunarpages as my personal ISP. (http://www.lunarpages.com)
• I have had absolutely no problems with them, but I can't guarantee that you wouldn't. I get no "kick-back" or discount for me from any ISP. The ones that are listed in this course are just ones that I know many people have used with no or very few problems.
  

All this will be discussed in full detail in my "Unit 4 Comments" and in Chapter 4 of the text, but if you think you may like doing this "the better way" you may want to read ahead and get started early.

This Unit:

Reading Assignment

You can skim the Intro Chapter since it is mostly about the "way" they wrote the book—interesting, but not directly related to web page creation.

Read Chapter One, closely, and do all the exercises in the chapter.

There is really no way to learn this stuff without the hands-on experience of actually doing the exercises and writing the code. The answers are at the end of the chapter! Check each exercise after you do it; don't wait to do the entire chapter first. If you get a question wrong, make sure you know what you did wrong. You need to know this stuff to do good web pages--and to pass the quiz on this chapter.

Discussion:

This unit we have two discussion topics. The first one should be easy. Just tell the class a little about yourself, and tell us if you have had any previous experience in web design.

The second discussion should be fun. Each student should provide the address of a "good" website and tell the class why they think it's good. Don't worry at this point about technical issues. Just react to the websites at a personal level and tell us why you think it's good.

Next, check out the entries your classmates have provided. At a minimum, you should comment on two sites nominated by someone other than yourself. If you want to comment on everybody's favorite sites, go for it.

For all discussion items, please take the time to look over the other entries and make some comments. It's the only way we can simulate classroom discussion in this online format, and on many occasions it will be another student who will give you the best idea of the day!

Quiz:

Take the quiz. If you don't get a perfect score take it again. (The grade for the course will be the average of both tries. If you get a perfect score on the first try, don't bother with the second time (grin).) The quizzes are totally "open book." Look up the answer if you don't know how to respond. The idea is to learn the material--well.

Assignment:

Browsers display borders differently!

The assignment should look like the picture on page 41. However, if you are using Internet Explorer 6 or 7, you will NOT see the dotted gray border around the words on the page.

Try looking at your mission.html file in the Firefox or Opera Browser. You will see the 1 px dotted gray border.

In IE 8, or 7 or 6, you will not see the dotted gray line.

Try this. Change the border entry in the "prebaked" CSS to read like this:

border: 5px solid red;

Save the page and then look at the page in IE 8, or 7, or 6. A fat, red border will be visible, but...

This is why people are annoyed at Microsoft. There are little glitches in the IE 6/7/8 browsers that don't work like the standard everybody is supposed to use. You just found one. The border line is in the wrong place.

It is always a good idea to do your work in Firefox first, and then check it in IE 8 or 7 to see what's different. Usually it's not much, but sometimes it is very strange. This has always been the way of the browser wars over the years. We have to make our pages look good on all the browsers we care about. There are hacks and fixes we will get into later. (Don't worry about this for now. It just happens!)

In the WebCT Assignment tool, attach the html file that you made for the exercise on page 33 and upload it to me. Send me the version that has the 5px solid red border.

Working Ahead:

Each week you will see a "start date" and a "due date" for the unit we will cover. However, you ARE ENCOURAGED to work ahead. All the course is laid out in advance and is completely on line as of today, so if you want to move more quickly to get to the "good stuff," that's fine with me. You will probably be happy to have some extra time at the end of the course so you can spend extra time on your website design.

However, don't go so fast that you don't really learn every topic. You need each skill to be strong so that you can connect it to what comes next.

...Bill