Week 1

Notes

• Textbook: Learning Web Design (5th ed)
• Introducing HTML Elements (or tags)
• A Basic HTML5 Page Explained
• HTML5 Template
• Web Servers and FTP
• File Naming Conventions
• All About Slashes
• Software for your home computer

Homework

Reading

Learning Web Design:

• Read Part 1: pages 3-13, 21-34, 35-43
• Read the sidebars on pages 54, 55, 56, and 61
• Read pages 62-64 on Empty Elements and Attributes
• Read Chapter 5: pages 71-87

Supplemental

• Browser Usage Statistics (StatCounter Global Stats)
• Browser Usage Statistics (w3schools.com)
• HTML <!DOCTYPE> Declaration (w3schools.com)
• A Basic XHTML Page Explained

About Page Exercise

Using what you learned in class today and from the Chapter 5 reading, create an about page which answers the following questions:

• What's your name?
• What's your major (or Comm Concentration)?
• What Graphic Design or Computer Science courses have you taken?
• Why are you taking this class and what would you like to learn?
• Have you ever made a website or done any web design before?
• What types of websites would you like to make?

You should start by copying the HTML5 Template code in to a new document. Save the document as about.html. Use heading, paragraph and list tags as appropriate to structure your answers. You should also include the questions in your page. Remember to upload the finished about.html file to your Simmons web space.

Linking your files

We covered creating basic hyperlinks in class. Link the text on your index.html page so that it goes to your about.html page and your what-i-know.html page. Also try creating a link to your blog assignment page (see below).

Blog Assignment

For this class you will be required to do weekly writing assignments (a blog).

You should plan on creating a blog page for each week on your Simmons website to hold these posts. You should already have a file named index.html in your website. Create a new file named blog1.html which will contain your first blog post.

For your first blog post, write a few paragraphs about three things that you learned in class or in the reading and one question that you have either from class or the reading.

Make a link on your index.html page that goes to your blog assignment page. Make sure to upload all files to the Simmons web server using Transmit (or another FTP program).

A Note About Privacy

Please remember that everything you put on the web is public. Search engines may or may not find your Simmons websites. I like to follow this rule when it comes to what I put online:

Never put anything online that I would be embarrassed to have my grandmother see.

I suggest you adopt a similar rule for yourself.