We dove right in to the deep end of the pool this week, with Tuesday’s vocabulary pre-test and Thursday’s HTML/CSS workshop, but from what I saw, most of you had no trouble staying afloat. 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 continue our tour of the basics of HTML and CSS, using the online résumé assignment to learn some of web design’s foundational concepts. On Tuesday, we will finish applying basic HTML tags to your résumés and begin to think about how we can use colors and background images to improve their visual appearance. Before you come to class, please read Hours 2, 3, and 4 in the Sams book and try to make some additional progress on marking up the HTML version of your résumé.
On Thursday, we will focus on fine-tuning the typography and spacing of the elements in your résumés using cascading style sheets (CSS). Your only homework for Thursday is to read Hours 5 and 6 in the Sams book. A word of warning: these chapters mark the point at which the textbook begins to get a little 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. [UPDATE: Here is the in-class workshop for Thursday's class.]
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 talk to me. 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 next week. Have a great weekend!