What's Going On? December 19th through December 22nd

School Schedule for the Week
Since this is a four day week leading up to our winter break, our schedule will look a little different.  We will not run a traditional "Monday Schedule".  Instead, we will run our typical "Tuesday schedule" on Monday, our "Wednesday schedule" on Tuesday, our "Thursday schedule" on Wednesday and our "Friday schedule" on Thursday.  We will also have a modified schedule on Thursday with a pep assembly at the end of the day.

Programming the Web Schedule for the Week

This week, students will continue to work on the lesson 12a assignment.  Going into the weekend, students should have completed formatting our photos and should have written the code for the basic overall structure for the page.  Based on our productivity level on this project and the progress made, we will set our goal due date.  Students will learn about our due date during class on Wednesday.   

Winter Break

Winter break is Friday, December 23rd through January 2nd.  School will resume on Tuesday, January 3rd.  I hope everyone enjoys this break and has time to relax and spend time with family and friends!  Stay warm!

What's Going On? December 12th through December 16th

Unit 12: Web-Based Graphics

This week students will be working on unit 12: Web-Based Graphics.  Along with this unit, students will read chapters 21 and 22 in the textbook, complete the accompanying reading guide, our weekly review questions, and web assignment 12a.


In this unit, students will work a little bit with Photoshop in order to optimize pictures for the internet.  Students will learn how to set the resolution for a photo to 72dpi, resize photos, and the best extension for images (gif, jpg, png).

Once we have talked about and practice formatting images, students will then have the opportunity to work on our web assignment 12a.  For this assignment, students will create their own layout and apply image formatting techniques in order to create a home page for a website that we will be working on through unit 12 and 13.

What's Going On? December 5th Through 9th

Lesson 11: CSS Techniques

This week we will be looking at some HTML techniques and how to apply new CSS techniques in order to create responsive web sites.  We will look at how we can use one set of HTML rules in order to create a site optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktop computers.  During this week, students will need to read chapter 18 in the textbook, complete the reading guide, and work on web assignments 11a and 11b.




Throughout the week, we will investigate an image replacement technique, known as the Phark method.  This will allow us to replace text with an image.  

We will also take some time to look into how to create a table using html.  A table is a useful technique for organizing data.

Interested in Computer Science? Try An Hour of Code!

December 5th through 9th is Computer Science Education Week and people all around the country and world are participating in the "Hour of Code".  Tens of millions of people in over 180 countries have participated in an "Hour of Code" event.  North will be hosting an "Hour of Code" event on Thursday, December 8th after school from 3:15-4:15 in computer lab 300.  If you would like to learn a little bit more about computer programming, please join us!  Please see me if you have any questions.

What's Going On? November 28th through December 2nd

Lesson 10: Page Layout with CSS

This week we will move on to lesson 10 where we will gain more experience with designing page layouts with CSS.  Along with this week's lesson, students will need to read chapter 16 in the textbook, complete the accompanying reading guide, and answer the ten multiple choice lesson review questions.  Students will also have two web assignments to complete.  With the first, students will work with floats to achieve our desired layout.  For assignment 10A, students will apply what we have learned to create a layout of three columns.

For assignment 10B, students will work with negative margins.  We will complete this assignment as a group to show students how negative margins and floats could be used together in order to create a similar three column layout.

What's Going On? November 21st and November 22nd

Designing a Layout

During this short week leading up to Thanksgiving, web students will either use the class time to catch up on past assignments or to practice writing the code to design a layout.  This is a critical skill for students to learn in order to successfully design their own websites for our final project.

In order to practice this skill, students will work on creating a generic layout like the one shown below:

What's Going On? November 14th through November 18th

Lesson 9: Floating and Positioning

Last week students finished up our midterm assignment.  From the looks of things, students have been doing a great job creating our "Border Collie Rescue" website for this project.

This week students will discover more about how to create layouts using different positioning styles and floats.

  

In order to become more knowledgeable on this subject matter, students will read chapter 15 in our textbook and complete the accompanying reading guide.  We will also complete some notes together as a class where we try out our new web techniques.

Students will put this knowledge to work through four web assignments for the week (9a, 9b, 9c, 9d).  Students will be working more with the "Jenware" website and will be completing tutorials for the textbook to add some new layout features for the page.  

Students are considered "on pace" for the class if the reading guide is completed by our Tuesday/Wednesday class, the review questions are planned for and completed during our Thursday class, and all web assignments are uploaded to our shared folder on Google Drive by the end of Friday's class.  Students who need additional time in the lab should talk with me about coming in before school, after school, or during lunch.

What's Going On? November 7th through November 11th

Midterm Project

This week, students will be working on their midterm project.  I will provide a picture of what each of the four pages of the website must look like.  It is up to the student to create the HTML and CSS coding that produces the working web page.  Students will have the assignment presented on Monday and students will have the entire week to work on the project.  All projects must be uploaded by the end of class on Friday.  Students may use old assignments, the internet, and other resources to create this page. However, students may not work together on this assignment.  Additionally, we will have 20 multiple choice questions which students will take during class on Thursday.

Students will have four class periods to work on this assignment.  Students who would like extra time to complete this can make arrangements to come in before school, during lunch, or after school.

Students who are enrolled in this course in partnership with WCTC must earn a "C" or higher in the course and show that they can complete the midterm and final project.  Students should have brought home a detailed grade report this week to show their current progress in the course.

Parent Teacher Conferences

This is just a reminder that parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for this Thursday, November 10 from 4:30-7:30pm.  Parents and students can meet with teachers at this time in the field house.  I will be available to talk about student progress and goal setting at this time.  

What's Going On? October 31st through November 4th

Lesson 8: Thinking Inside the Box

This week students will complete lesson 8 in class.  Along with this lesson, students will read chapter 14 in the textbook, complete the reading guide, and web assignment 8a.  Students will have Monday to learn some new web techniques with our notes day and Tuesday/Wednesday and Thursday as work days.  The entire class will participate in a class review on Friday to go over some HTML and CSS techniques.

During this week's assignment, we will focus on the "Box Model".  We will take a look at how to add spacing with padding and margin.  We will also practice adding stylized borders into our pages.

Midterm Project

It is really important that students are on pace at the end of this week since we will have our midterm project next week.  Students will start the project on Monday and MUST upload it by the end of class on Friday.  Students will be given screen shots of the final project and will have all week to come up with the HTML and CSS coding to create the website.  Students can use their resources: the textbook, old web assignments, and the internet in order to complete the assignment.  Students MAY NOT work together.  Students who need additional work time beyond what is provided in class must make arrangements before school, during lunch or after school to have the lab open.

What's Going On? October 24th through October 26th

Lesson 7: Colors and Backgrounds

During this short week of school, web students will work on finishing up our seventh unit on colors and backgrounds.  With this lesson, students have the opportunity to try out different background images and address different ways to add color to our pages.  

Students are considered "on pace" for the class after the lesson 7 multiple choice review questions are complete and the web assignments 7a, 7b, and 7c are uploaded to Google Drive by the end of class on Tuesday.

During class on Wednesday, we will review some past web concepts, including how to mark-up text into sections using <div> tags.

What's Going On? October 17th through October 21st

Unit 6: Intro to CSS

At this point in the semester, students have pretty much learned all of the necessary HTML document markup required.  We still could use some more practice marking up sections of text, but so far students have shown a grasp of our basic header, paragraph, list, and image tags.

For a quick review of div tags and how they work to mark up sections of text, you could check out this video:

For lesson 6 we will start modifying the look of our page using CSS.  For this lesson's assignments, we will have our textbook reading along with the accompanying reading guide, our 10 lesson review multiple choice questions and three web pages.  This week all three web assignments will be presented as follow-along tutorials in the textbook.  I highly encourage students to READ about the changes they are making to the code so that when it comes time to make these changes on our own, we understand the reasoning behind the code syntax.

Students are considered "on pace" for the class if the lesson 6 assignments are complete by the end of our class on Tuesday/Wednesday.  Students who need additional time in the lab are encouraged to come in early (the lab opens at 7am) or during their lunch period.

After lesson 6 is complete, we will move on to lesson 7 where we will learn about how to make more changes to color and backgrounds using CSS.

What's Going On? October 10th through October 14th

Checking In

Last week students filled out a form reflecting on their current progress in the course.  These forms should be signed by someone at home and then returned to me.  Since this course is offered in partnership with WCTC and students who successfully complete the class with a "C" or higher will earn WCTC and North credit, I want to maintain an open line of communication so that there are no "surprises" at the end of the semester.


Finishing Up Lesson 5 and Starting Lesson 6

It seemed as if students needed some extra time last week finishing up on lesson 4, so we did not begin lesson 5 until the end of last week.  With lesson 5, students explored more about adding images to web pages and learned how to make an image map.  Students will apply these techniques in the three web pages that go along with lesson 5.  The plan is to finish up lesson 5 this week on Tuesday/Wednesday and begin lesson 6 on Thursday.  Students should have their lesson 5 reading guides completed by Monday's class and be prepared to take our 10 multiple choice review questions on Tuesday/Wednesday.  Reading guides and the lesson review questions can be found on BlackBoard, so please be prepared!

We started to use the industry-standard software, Adobe DreamWeaver, last week.  This is an extremely costly program so it is probably not something easily accessible to students outside of our computer lab.  If students need some additional time to work they can see me.  I arrive to school by 7am each day and would be more than happy to open the lab.

What's Going On? October 3rd through October 7th

Finishing Up Lesson 4
Last week was kind of a crazy week.  We ended up taking a little longer than expected to go through our notes this week so that we could go over some important concepts that we covered during our lesson 3 assignments.  Plus, our class periods were cut short due to all of the Homecoming festivities.  It seems like students needed a little bit of extra time to finish up our projects for lesson 4, so students will have Monday's class period as a catch-up day.  Students are considered "on pace" for the course if all of lesson 4 has been uploaded to Google Drive by the end of Monday's class.  Students who find that they need some extra time to work are welcome to talk with me about getting into the computer lab before school.

Lesson 5: Images and Image Maps
This week we will start using our industry-standard software, DreamWeaver.  Now that students are starting to get a handle on the basic structure of HTML, we will start using DreamWeaver.  This software will allow us to more easily create links and mark-up our documents.  Students will appreciate the "split-screen" view of DreamWeaver where they will be able to see their HTML code and a browser simulation side-by-side.

During this week's lesson, students will use DreamWeaver to add images to our web pages.  While we have been doing this before, we will learn about some additional properties where we can specify the height and the width of our image.  

<img src = "images/picture.jpg" alt="Picture Discription" height="100" width="150">

Students will also learn how to create an image map.  This is a clickable image that allows us to create different "hotspots" to navigate to different web pages.  DreamWeaver makes the process of making an image map much easier!

Along with this week's assignments, students will need to read chapter 7 and complete the accompanying reading guide.  The reading guide will be due by Thursday's class and we will complete our weekly review questions at the beginning of class on Friday.

What's Going On? September 26th through 30th

 Lesson 4: Links

This week students will be working on lesson 4.  During this unit students will learn how to create links to visit external websites, to link pages within their website and to create links within a page.

We will talk about how to create an absolute link to an existing website:

      <a href = "http://www.waukeshanorth.org">Waukesha North Home Page</a>


We will talk about how to create a relative link within our website:

    <a href = "index.html">Website Home Page</a>


We will also talk about how to create a link fragment (linking within a page):

   <h1 id="top">Top of the Page</h1>

    <a href = "#top">Back to the top of the page</a>


Lastly, we will talk about how to create an e-mail link:

  <a href = "mailto:kkamenar@waukesha.k12.wi.us">E-Mail Mrs. Kamenar</a>


This week students will have a reading guide to complete by Thursday's class.  We will also have our ten multiple choice questions as a summative assessment on Friday.  I encourage students to pre-plan their answers to these questions.  Students can find the questions with answer choices on BlackBoard and they were also included on the backside of this week's reading guide.  Students will also complete three assignments related to link creation: 4a, 4b, and 4c.

Students are considered "on pace" if unit 4 is complete by the end of class on Friday.  If students need additional time in the lab, please check with me.  We can arrange a time before or after school.

What's Going On? September 19th through September 23rd

Lesson 3: Marking Up Text

This week students will be reading chapter 5 in our textbook and completing the accompanying reading guide.  This will help students prepare for our multiple choice questions that we see at the end of the week.  Students are reminded to plan their answers to the questions ahead of time.  This assessment is open-book, open-note, open-internet.  All of the multiple choice questions can be found in the student handout which is accessible on BlackBoard and also by clicking here.

This week we will focus on some additional HTML markup techniques, including how to make lists and how to markup text into sections using <div>, <article>, and <section> tags.  We will learn about these skills and try them out together early in the week.  Students will then have the opportunity to try out these skills on their own with assignments 3a, 3b, and 3c.

Students will be considered "on pace" for the course, if lesson 3 is complete by the end of the week.

What's Going On? September 12th through 16th

Lesson 2: Creating a Simple Web Page

This week students will continue the study of creating a simple web page and finish up their lesson 2 web assignments and complete the lesson 2 review questions.  All lesson review questions are open book and open note.  The questions are also available online so I encourage students to plan their answers BEFORE we take the assessment.

At the end of the week, we will move on to lesson 3 where students will learn some more HTML techniques.

I will be sending in our WCTC applications this week, so please make sure that you have talked this option over with people at home to see if this is a good fit for you.  Students who successfully complete the course with a "C" or higher will earn WCTC college credit.  This is a great (and free) option for many students, even those who don't currently plan on enrolling in WCTC.

Students are considered "on pace" in the class if they have completed our lesson 2 reading (chapter 4), the reading guide, the lesson 2 review questions, and projects 2a, 2b, and 2c by Thursday, September 15th.  Yes, I know that this seems like a lot to get done this week.  Keep in mind that the reading and the reading guide should be taken care of at home and the rest of the assignments can be (and should be) completed in class.

We're just getting started with the basics of web design so it's really important that we build a strong foundation.  Please let me know if you have any questions!  It's much easier to clear up misconceptions at the beginning of the semester than it is at the end.

What's Going On? September 6th through 9th

Programming the Web's Partnership with WCTC

This is just a reminder about our discussion that we had last week regarding our course partnership with WCTC.  Students who are enrolled in our Web 1 course have the opportunity to enroll in a FREE transcripted credit class with WCTC.  Students who choose to enroll in the WCTC course will complete the same coursework as students who do not.  Students who pass the course with a “C” or higher and are enrolled in the WCTC transcripted credit program will receive credit through WCTC in addition to Waukesha North.  Students will be completing the paperwork to enroll in this course this week during class.

Lesson 1: Web Basics

This week, students will continue our study of web basics.  The official WCTC reading assignment is to read the first three chapters of our textbook.  To make sure that students are not overwhelmed by this heavy reading assignment and to make sure that we gain the necessary information from the text, students broke up into groups during class on Friday and summarized a portion of the text on a poster.  This week in class, students will view all of the posters in order to read a summarized version of our text.  While viewing the posters, students will complete our accompanying reading guide and plan our responses to the weeks ten multiple choice questions.  Later in the week we will continue our discussion from last week about fixed width web sites, liquid web sites, and responsively designed web sites.  Students will then find currently existing websites to find an example of each.

Welcome to the 2016-2017 School Year!

Welcome back to school!  My name is Mrs. Kamenar and I will be working with you in your Programming the Web 1 class this year.  This will be my twelfth year teaching at Waukesha North.  This year I will be teaching Honors Geometry, Math Readiness, Fundamentals of Programming, Programming the Web 1 & 2 and Yearbook.  In addition to teaching at North, I am also an assistant women's cross country coach and the school's yearbook advisor.

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing summer.  This summer went by too fast, but I guess it always seems that way.  This summer I got to spend a lot of time with my husband and my two kids, Jack and Laura.  We spent our time going to the zoo, the children's museum, going to the library and swimming.  My family and I took a few days to visit Portugal where we were able to visit a castle, an oceanarium, and spend some time on the beach.


My goal is to keep you up to date with what's going on in the classroom through this blog.  Between the blog and our class schedule of events that will be posted on our BlackBoard class website, it is my hope that all students and parents will be informed about what's going on in the classroom.

In this course, students will learn how to create and design web pages using HTML5 and CSS.  This course, which is offered as a transcripted course through WCTC, allows students to simultaneously earn high school credit through Waukesha North and college credit through WCTC.  The course is broken down into weekly lessons.  Each week students will be introduced to a new web design technique.  We will talk about the new concept in class and try out a sample together.  Students will receive a programming assignment which consists of between 1 and 4 web sites for the week.  Early in the semester, many of the assignments are presented as step-by-step tutorials from our class textbook.  Students will also need to read an assigned portion of the textbook and take a weekly assessment.

In this first week of class, we will talk about different methods of web design.  Students will look at existing web pages online and analyze the design.  Along with this week, we will see our largest reading assignment for the semester.  Students must read the first three chapters of the textbook in order to prepare for our first assessment.  Students will participate in a "jigsaw" activity and a gallery walk in order to help make this first chunk of text more manageable for students.  Students will be provided a "reading guide" to accompany the text so that they can pick out the most important information.

I am really excited to get to work with you this year.  I hope we are all able to learn a lot and have some fun along the way!  If you have any questions as we move through the year, please don't hesitate to contact me.  If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me at kkamenar@waukesha.k12.wi.us.  You can also follow me on Twitter: @MrsKamenar.