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.