HTML - Level 1

CS-50.11A, section 8164, Summer 2010

presented by Muiz Brinkerhoff

email is the BEST way to contact me - classes@insideSkills.com

Welcome!

• So, you want to be able create your own web pages by typing in the XHTML & CSS code by hand, in order to have total control over how your pages look?
• Perhaps you need to this course to complete your Certificate?
• Or perhaps the course title sounded interesting, and here you are ...

Whatever your reasons or motivations for registering for this course, Welcome!

This Start Here page presents the information and details about the variety of things you need to know and to do, in order to get started with this course.

Please read every section carefully and completely, and take care of the 7 Preliminary Steps immediately, rather than waiting until later in the week to come back to them. None of your assignments from each Lesson can be submitted until these Preliminary Steps are completed.

Once you've completed the Preliminary Steps, you're prepared and ready to begin the actual course work without having to pause or backtrack.

The on-time deadline, for full credit, for the 7 Preliminary Steps is displayed in the Deadline box at the top of this page, and also with each step.

Instructor's email and
Required Subject Line Prefix for ALL Messages

Because I regularly receive a lot of email, and because only a portion of it is College and Class related, I require a particular type of Subject line for each and every email that you send to me as a student registered in a class that I'm teaching.

Email: classes@insideskills.com
SUBJECT LINE: MUST always begin with CS-50.11A, and MUST always be followed by a descriptive phrase that indicates what the email is about.

I receive from 50 to 75 emails, almost every day, and when teaching a class, I scan through the list of new message Subject lines looking for those messages which have Subjects beginning with the Course Number Prefix of the classes I'm teaching, so that I can identify class related emails and respond to them in a timely fashion.

I am aware that there are a few instructors at SRJC who are notorious for not responding to student emails -- I am not one of those. Class related email is almost always responded to within 24 hours. However, in order to do this, I must be able to identify new mail as class related.

When I'm busy, non-class related emails may sit in my Inbox for several days, or even a week, before I have the time to get back to them.

So, if your message Subject line is missing the Required Prefix (CS-50.11A), as far as I'm concerned it is NOT class related, and doesn't need to be read or responded to right away.

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How does this class work?

This class uses a hybrid format, combining features from both in-person and online courses.

The in-person, face to face, component consists of weekly classroom lecture/demonstrations, which you are expected to attend, followed by a REQUIRED, hands-on, practice session, guided by the instructor, in a computer lab.

The online component consists of a class website where ALL assignment instructions, resource links, Syllabus, Discussion Forum, and other course information and material are available to be used at any point during each class week, either from your home or work computer, or anywhere that you have a connection to the internet.

In addition, since this course is about creating web pages, you will have a class web account, where your assignment web pages are uploaded, so we all can view them, and assignment submision Replies are posted at the online Discussion Forum, to let me know when your particular assignments are completed and ready for grading.

Like a traditional class ...

• You will be in a classroom with other students and the instructor for 2 hours each week.
  • where you'll get to hear and see the weekly material discussed and demonstrated
  • where you'll have the opportunity to ask questions and get immediate answers
• You take personal responsibility for:
  • reading the assigned material from the textbook(s)
    • these materials need to be ACTUALLY read, carefully and completely, rather than just being glanced at, or skimmed
  • TAKING NOTES as you read the materials, writing down the important points and highlights, new XHTML tags and what they do, new CSS properties and values, new approaches, or upgrades to the developing practice page and why it's being done, and so on
  • ACTUALLY working through ALL of the practice exercises presented in each chapter of the text
    • working ALL of the practice exercises and reproducing the XHTML and CSS code examples demonstrated in each chapter is a VERY effective strategy for helping you learn, and it will DEFINITELY make it easier for you to complete your assignments.
  • REGULARLY reading and responding to any class email (ie at least 3 times a week)
  • REGULARLY checking the Announcements section of the class website Home page
  • knowing when assignments are due
    • deadlines are clearly displayed on the Assignments Calendar page,
    • as well as at the top of each Lesson and Assignments page

• You're in charge of your work schedule each week, HOWEVER
  • This course is NOT self-paced
  • Assignments are due EACH week by the published deadline
  • If you miss the deadline, points are usually deducted
  • Without prior approval assignments more than 1 week late are NOT accepted
  • You need to budget your time so that you can keep moving forward in sync with the Assignments Calendar
• Grades are based on how well you complete the assignments and quizzes

Unlike a traditional class ...

• ALL assignments are submitted online
  • web pages are uploaded to your class web site
  • non-web page assignments are posted into Replies at the class Discussion Forum
  • you let me know that you've completed your week's assignments by ALWAYS posting a reply to the appropriate "My Assignment is Ready for Grading" topic in the class Discussion Forum
    • if you don't post the reply in the Forum, your assignment has not been officially submitted, and I won't go looking for it
• ALL Quizzes are taken online

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Preliminary Step 1. Check-In

Deadline for completing this PRELIMINARY step is

Wed 16 Jun 2010
Late Submission = 50% Credit

An important part of beginning any course, in-person, online, or hybrid, is "checking in". I will take the role and mark students either present or absent on the official class roster, at the beginning of each week's class session.

However, because I will be using an online Gradebook for your scores, and because you'll be taking Quizzes online, you'll need to also perform an online Check In (at the CATE system website) just llke you might for an online class, during which you'll create a CATE username and password which you'll use later in order to login there to take the Quizzes and whenever you want to look at your scores in the online gradebook.

If you have not yet checked in to this class section, please use the link below to fill out and submit the official Check In form.

https://online.santarosa.edu/cgi-bin/autocate/student/checkin.cgi?11453

If Roll is Taken in Class, Why Should I Bother with the Check In?

Use this link to read more about the Check In on the FAQ page.

Write Down Your CATE Username and Password in a Safe Place

Make CERTAIN that you WRITE DOWN your CATE username and password which you create during Check In, and indicate that it is for accessing the CATE online Quizzes, and Gradebook. Once you get used to using it, and once you can keep it separate from your Class Discussion Forum username and password, and the username and password for SFTP access to your web account at student (see below), you can destroy the written copy.

Each semester in the HTML and CSS courses, there is at least one student, and sometimes a handful, who about halfway through the course will post a comment in the forum very similar to the one below:

I wish I had taken Muiz' advice right at the beginning of the course, about writing down the 3 sets of usernames and passwords. When I first read the suggestion, I thought "Why should I do that. I'm an intelligent person. I certainly can remember a couple of usernames and passwords!" I naively thought that his advice didn't apply to me, that I wouldn't need any help in remembering them, and where to use them, but I was wrong, and I wasted a whole lot of time being unable to login to one area or another, because I kept using the wrong set in the wrong place.

BE AWARE: Checking In is one of your assignments due Mid-Week ... before midnight, Wed 16 Jun 2010. Why not complete this step right now, and then come back to this page to continue reading? You can use the Check URL link above or this link here.

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Preliminary Steps 2 and 3.
Register for the Discussion Forum
(WAIT for My Approval)
and Post Confirmation Reply

Deadline for completing this PRELIMINARY step is

Fri 18 Jun 2010
Late Submission = 50% Credit

We'll be using a Class Discussion Forum for a variety of things:

—Asking Questions, and Requesting Help with Course Material:

It is a more efficient use of everyone's time to have ALL course related questions asked via posting a Topic in the Forum, and having the answer posted there too as a Reply, so that everyone can read both the question and the answer and benefit by them, rather than having a series of individual emails sent to me, often with the same question or situation, which I then have to answer individually.

In order for this system to work well, everyone needs to look through the already asked and answered questions FIRST, to see if your question/situation has already been dealt with, BEFORE creating a new Topic.

—Turning In (Submitting) Assignments

You'll also be using the Forum to "turn in" your assignments EVERY week by posting weekly Replies to the appropriate Lesson Topic "My Assignments Are Ready For Grading".

This is the only way that I know your assignments are finished and ready to be scored. If you don't submit this required reply you have NOT submitted your assignment — even if you have uploaded pages or made the required changes to your site. I will not go looking for your assignments if you don't post the submission reply.

Reply NOT posted in the Forum = Assignment NOT turned in.

—Sharing Resources, Tips, and Tricks

The final thing you can use the forum for is to share Tips, Tricks, and Resources. If you find a resource website, an article, a book, a software application, or any other resource or piece of information that you find useful or helpful for creating web pages, or understanding XHTML and CSS better, and want to share it with the rest of your classmates, you can create a Topic in the Resources sub-forum. You can also look through the postings in this area to see if anything posted by others might be useful to you.

Please make the Topic Subject descriptive, specific, and useful, so that one doesn't need to open the topic to see if what it is actually about.

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Forum Registration is Required

The Forum is a private forum, open only to students taking my classes, therefore you must register a username and create a password to access it.

Somewhat like the Check In, I MUST approve your username before you'll be able to login. Once I approve it, you'll be sent an automated confirmation message, and then will be able to login.

Also like the Check Ins I'll approve Forum registration requests every morning, and at other times during the day, if I'm at the computer. Please give me 48 hours to approve your registration.

If You Don't Receive Your Confirmation

IF YOU HAVEN'T RECEIVED THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL AFTER 48 HOURS, please do 2 things: first, check your Junk Mail, Spam, GrayMail box to see if your email program put the activation message there rather than delivering it to your Inbox; and then, if it is NOT there, contact me immediately to let me know about it.

DON'T wait MORE THAN 48 HOURS, assuming that the "system might be busy", or that it might take some time for the email to arrive. You should receive the confirmation message within minutes of it being sent.

Forum Usernames Must Be First + Last Name:

In order to be able to identify who you are, and that you are actually a student registered in this class, as well as being able to know who has posted which topics and replies, so that we all can know who we're communicating with, the username you register MUST be your FULL NAME (first name, a space, and last name).

I won't approve other types of usernames.

Generally well known nicknames or shortened versions like Liz or Betty for Elizabeth, Mike for Michael, Nikki for Nicole or Nicolette, Bill for William, and so on, are fine as long as your surname is included too, HOWEVER RPG character names, screen names, avatar names, or any other type of username that isn't immediately connectable to your name as it appears on the roster are NOT ok, because I won't be able to tell which student the name belongs to. Also if you've registered for the class using one last name, and are currently using a different one, you MUST let me know, again because I have no way of knowing that the two names refer to the same student.

This is all very boring, and not at all creative, I know, but for the above reasons and because I have to give points for certain postings and don't want to have to consult a login names translation list, it needs to be this way to keep my job as simple and as easy as possible.

Write Down Your Forum Username and Password,
and Identify Where It is Used

Make CERTAIN that you WRITE DOWN the username and password pair that you create, and indicate that it is for the Class Discussion Forum, here at insideskills.com/classes. Once you get used to it, and can keep it separate in your mind from your CATE online Gradebook username and password, and from the username and password you use to upload files to your web account at student, you can destroy the written copy.

Post Your Confirmation Reply

Once you receive the email indicating that your Forum Registration has been approved by me -- the email Subject line will say "Account Activated" -- then post a reply to the HTML-1 Forum, Assignments for Credit sub-forum, Prelim Steps sub-forum, "I'm Logged In and Can Post" topic. See the Step by Step instructions below.

BE CAREFUL:

There are 2 forums active this summer, one for this HTML-1 class, and another for the HTML-3/CSS class. Make certain that you enter the correct forum.

If you went through the a class with me during the Spring Semester, you should use the Forum username and password you used for that class, rather than trying to create another one.

Step by Step Instructions for Forum Registration

Detailed instructions for registering for the Forum, and following up, can be found on the Preliminary Steps Instructions page -- Steps 2 and 3. Please take care of this step right now.

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Preliminary Steps 4 - 7.
Preparing Your Web Account at student

Deadline for completing this PRELIMINARY step is

Fri 18 Jun 2010
Late Submission = 50% Credit

Since this course is about creating web pages, you need to have an account on the web where you can upload the pages you create for your assignments, so that I, and your classmates, can view them from anywhere, rather than needing to be with you in front of your computer.

The name of the SRJC student web server where you will create a free account, and upload and view your web pages is "student" ( http://student.santarosa.edu -- notice that there is NO 'www' in this URL. Some URLs begin with 'www' and some don't, so pay attention to this crucial detail. ). Even if you have an account at some other web server, you must use your account at student for this course.

Step by Step Instructions

Detailed instructions for registering, and following up, can be found on the Preliminary Steps Instructions page - Steps 4 through 7. Please take care of this step right now, and then return here and continue reading.

Write Down Your student Username and Password in a Safe Place

Once again, I recommend that you write down your student username and password and indicate that it is for accessing your student web account (at student.santarosa.edu) with SFTP. Once you're comfortable using the 3 different sets of usernames and passwords: for the CATE Gradebook (online.santarosa.edu), for the Class Discussion Forum (insideskills.com/classes), and for SFTP access to your student account (student.santarosa.edu) — then you can destroy the written copy.

BE AWARE: Confirming your ability to access your web account, being able to upload web pages, AND being able to view them in a browser, is one of your assignments due by FRIDAY of this first week (before midnight, Fri 18 Jun 2010 ). Why not complete this step right now?

Re/Organizing Existing Files

If you have used, or are using, your student account for other classes, you need to MAKE CERTAIN that all of the files you upload for THIS class are in their own separate folder, inside of public_html/, called something appropriate like html1/. You CANNOT mix the files from different classes, or different projects in the same folder.

If your files from the other class have all been uploaded directly to the public_html/ folder, you can either create a separate folder for that class, and move all of the existing files into it, so that there is nothing directly inside of public_html/ except folders for your various classes and projects ... or simply create an html1/ folder (inside of public_html/) for this class and leave the other files in the root folder of public_html/ -- remembering to upload this classes's files into the html1/ folder.

40MB Storage Limit for student Accounts

If you don't need the existing files, from a previous class or classes, you can always delete them to free up the space. Accounts at student have a file storage limit of 40MB, so you probably won't be able to keep a lot of unused files there.

BE AWARE that if you exceed the 40MB storage limit, you will lose the ability to upload any more files. It will look like you have uploaded -- your SFTP program will probably not give you an error message -- but the file or files will not be there when you try to access them. The solution is to delete all of the files that you are not actively using.

Also, NEVER upload Photoshop format files (.psd), or any other graphic formats -- ONLY .gif, .jpg, and possibly .png, since browsers can't display the other formats. Those other files just take up storage space without being useful in any way.

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This Completes The Preliminary Steps

If you've successfully completed the above 7 Preliminary Steps, you're now ready to read the rest of the important information presented at this Start Here page, familiarizing yourself with the class website, and then following the steps in the Where Next section at the bottom of this page.

Navigating Through the Class Website

Here is an overview of the layout of this site:

• Home - the top/introductory page for this class section website
• Start Here - the page you are on right now
• Syllabus - class policies & other very important info (Read it carefully and completely)
• Assignments - a calendar of assignment topics and due dates
• Lessons - all the reading selections and assignments details for each lesson
• Resources - a recap of all of the Resource links, by lesson
• FAQ - Answers to and more details about frequently asked questions
• Grades - a link to the online gradebook (located at CATE online.santarosa.edu)
• Forum - a link to the Class Discussion Forum (located at InsideSkills.com/classes)
• Discounts - a page with links for discounted Educational Pricing on popular software
• Instructor - a link to the instructor's homepage here at InsideSkills.com/classes

There are navigation tabs at the top right of every page in this site, and also a set of text navigation links at the very bottom of every page.

There are navigation tabs at the top right of every page in this site, and also a set of text navigation links at the very bottom of every page.

You will find what is necessary to complete weekly assignments, and links to many terrific Web resources, in the weekly lessons and on the Resources page. Also included are links to samples of work done by previous students as well as work done by others out there in the world.

Take a Tour of the Website

One of the most important pages at this class website is the Start Here page (where you are right now), as this page contains crucial orientation information and preliminary steps that MUST be completed BEFORE you start on the Lesson 01 Assignments, but the other pages are important too.

Set aside 30 minutes or so, take care of the Preliminary Steps listed above (Check In, Forum Registration, and Confirmation of student Account Access), and then begin to explore this class website, looking at every page, so that you're very clear what is on each page, and where the various pieces of info or resources you'll need during the course are located.

Taking the time now to familiarize yourself with this class website will save double or even triple the amount later on, and avoid your floundering around the site trying to find a piece of info that you need.

Once again, I repeat, this Start Here page, and the Syllabus page contain vital information regarding the preliminary start up steps, which are due mid-week, plus class policies, and info about assignments, grading, and lab facilities, and the step by step instructions for your assignments, so please read them carefully.

If You Encounter a Broken Link

Within the class website: please let me know about it immediately. Please provide the following 3 important details ...

• the name of the page in the class site where you found the link,
• the relative location on the page (top, bottom, near the middle, in section such-and-such, etc),
• AND the text of the link as you see it on the page.

That way I'll be able to go directly to it, and not waste time searching around for it. Believe me, I have not memorized the text and location of every link in this site.

On pages external to this class website: since I have no control over the external pages that the links point to, there is only so much that I can do if an external link which was working, suddenly comes up broken. Owners of website make changes all the time, reorganizing the file and folder structure, changing the names of pages, even changing domain names, all of which can result in broken external links here at this website.

What YOU can do, as soon as you discover that an external link is broken, is to do an internet search for the title of the resource, or article and possibly the author's name. You may be able to find the NEW location of the page. If you are successful in finding the new location of the page, please report BOTH the broken link (providing the same 3 important details as for an internal broken link) AND the NEW URL. That way I can simply adjust the broken link to point to the page's new location.

If you're unable to find a new location, report the situation to me. At times in the past I've been successful in finding the new location of the page, and once or twice I've contacted the author of the article and have been given the new location quickly enough for it to be of use during the lesson.

If a new location for an article can't be found, then I'll remove the link and try and find a replacement.

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The Class Week,
When Homework is Due,
How it is Submitted

The Class Week runs from Tuesday 12.00am through the following Monday Midnight (11.59.59pm). All assignments are due on Monday evenings BEFORE the midnight deadline, as published on the Assignments Calendar and on the assignment details pages. This gives you the entire weekend plus one more day to complete your assignments -- quite helpful if job or family responsibility take you away for a weekend.

However, my recommendation is to get started early in the week, and save the weekends and Monday for finishing up final details.

Each assignment has a posted deadline, clearly displayed on the Assignments Calendar Page, and also on the Assignment Details page for that particular lesson. Your Forum reply to the appropriate "My Assignment is Ready for Grading" topic must be posted before that deadline to receive full, on-time credit for the assignments. (see Syllabus and FAQ pages for more details on class policies connected to assignments and grades, and for accessing the Forum.)

Late submissions

Assignment submission replies that are posted to the Forum after the published deadlines are late, and are subject to a late penalty deduction equal to 20% of the total points available for the assignment.

In special circumstances a Deadline Extension with a waiving of the late penalty, can be requested, and must be approved BEFORE the published on-time deadline. Waiting until after the regular deadline has passed won't work.

Deadline Extensions to avoid the late penalty can be used ONLY twice during the course of the class.

ONLY 2 Assignments may be submitted late, during the course of the class, whether or not you request a Deadline Extension. After the 2 late submissions, any further late submission will receive No Credit. If your life and schedule are so busy that you have to submit more than 2 out of 7 assignments late, you're probably too busy to be taking the class at this point, and should consider dropping it, and re-taking it later when you have more time for it.

Without prior approval, assignments submitted more than 1 week late are not accepted for credit.

The fact that you can submit an assignment late doesn't mean that you should wait until the last minute to do your work. In fact, the students who do the best in this class start their assigments early in the week, and give themselves plenty of time to work on them without rushing.

So, DON'T WAIT until the evening of the deadline to begin working on your assignments. You WILL NOT have enough time to finish them before the deadline.

See FAQ - How Can I do Well in This Class?

Classmate Assignments and Web Pages are Visible

The URLs to everyone's assignment pages and Class Project Website will be posted in the Discussion Forum, where they can be viewed by everyone in the class, as well as any assignments that are posted there, as Replies to Topics. The purpose for this is to give everyone the added support of seeing how other students are approaching the assignments, and to be a source of ideas for things you might do with your own site.

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Which Browser Should I Use
to View This Website and the Pages I Create?

For this Beginning XHTML & CSS class, Firefox (verson 3) is the recommended browser. You can also view your pages in other browsers, such as Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, and so on, BUT you MUST create your pages to look the way they should in Firefox.

The reason for this is that not every browser renders a page exactly the same as other browsers, and that older versions of certain browsers were very quirky and problematic in rendering the layout of pages correctly.

Ultimately Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will control all page layout and appearance. Differences in how CSS styles are rendered by the different browsers, and the different versions of a particular browser can sometimes be quite extreme. Over the years, Firefox has reliably been the most compliant in renderng the XHTML and CSS Standards, (as defined by W3C, The World Wide Web Consortium), and Miscrosoft Internet Explorer the least compliant and most quirky, over the most versions -- often requiring some arcane work-arounds and/or outright hacks to make it display complex page layouts and styles correctly. IE v7 and v8 comply with the Standards much more completely than prior versions, but there are still some problems.

Therefore, we will use Firefox as the PRIMARY browser for all 3 of the HTML classes (A, B, and C).

Also, the site was designed for best viewing in Firefox 3, at 1024x768 resolution.

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What If I Can't Access Class Materials?

It will be impossible for you to take an online class if you can't see and read the materials and submit your homework. So, here's what we assume:

From Your End

You MUST have regular, ongoing access to a reliable computer and a reliable internet connection, and you need to check your email at least 3 times a week, if not every day.

If your monitor dies or your hard drive crashes (hopefully you will have at least one backup copy of the files you're using for the class, if not a 2nd backup copy); if your modem or service provider or wireless network is flakey or cranky or intermittently undependable; if you can only connect to the internet occasionally; or if you need to depend on someone else's schedule to be able to use their computer, you MUST have a back-up plan, or you may need to re-think your situation.

Regular and reliable access to a computer and the internet is required. In addition, having sufficient time to devote to the reading, study, practice, and assignments is also a requirement.

Not being able to access a computer or the internet, or not having enough time, are generally NOT valid excuses for submitting your assignments late.

In certain unusual circumstances I may make some allowances, but if your inability to participate regularly and complete your assignments on time persists for too long, I may recommend that you drop the class and re-take it at a time when your situation is different.

As an enrolled student, you have access to both the Santa Rosa and the Petaluma computer labs, and can use them any time they are open. (see the Computer Labs section of the Syllabus page)

It is your responsibility to check your email regularly, and to complete your assignments by the due dates...if you are unable to do this from home or work, you MUST make time to come in to one of the campus Computer Labs and do your work there, or if you are taking the class from out of the area, or if the open times for the labs don't suit your schedule, you MUST arrange to visit an internet cafe or a public library, or some other location that povides access to computers and the internet.

From Our End

You will find everything you need to successfully complete the class in your textbook(s) and at this class Web site. The web server that hosts this website (hostmonster.com) is very stable and relatively fast, with excellent 24/7 technical support.

However... as with any web site there may be a time when the server goes down, or when there is some problem with the phone lines, or with intermediate severs on the net between you and this server that interferes with your ability to get to the class Web site.

Unfortunately, this can happen when it's least convenient for you, and although I will do my best to remedy the unlikely situation if it occurs, I strongly advise you to PLAN AHEAD, start working on your assignments EARLY, keep up with the pace of the course, and NEVER count on being able to complete all of your assignments on the last day of the deadline.

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Look Over the FAQ Page

so that you are aware of which General or Frequently Asked questions have answers right here, take a quick look at the FAQ page. If those questions come up for you, use the FAQ page FIRST to read the answers before asking them via email or in the Discussion Forum.

Being Clear About My Expectations
For You as a Student

Be aware that while I'm personally very easy going, and accommodating, have a great sense of humor, and laugh a lot -- at the same time, I come to teaching from a long-term background in the business world, and I have a very good idea of what future employers and clients will expect of you, when you work for them, in terms of the technical knowledge and skills, and the personal work habits needed to provide them with the products and services they're purchasing from you, by the deadlines they set.

I want to encourage and support you learning HTML, XHTML, and CSS so that you can create great websites that are a credit to your reputation as a web designer.

Combined with this desire is the very clear understanding that this is a college course, for transferable college credit, rather than a high school class or a personal enrichment seminar, so I have a responsibility to maintain firm boundaries around the class policies, to hold students to high standards of academic excellence, and to expect a certain level of rigor from them.

Some students have commented in the past, that I was 'picky', but when a single missing semi-colon, a misplaced hyphen, or using a lower case character when it should be UPPER case, can prevent a set of styles from being applied to every page in the site, then 'picky' becomes a very good and necessary thing, and a quality which you want to develop within yourself.

Learning the code syntax, and then getting your XHTML code to validate without any errors, and your CSS code to format the layout of your page, so that it looks the way it should look, is not easy, and cannot be done without your being willing to devote the appropriate amount of time each week, to reading, studying, and practice -- in other words some hard work and real effort, on your part.

See the FAQ "How can I do well in this class".

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Skimming and "Multi-Tasking" versus
Reading Carefully and Completely

If you want to be successful in this course, if you want to get full points on your assignments, and if you want to actually benefit from the information and other material presented in the textbook, resources, and here, you need to READ what has been selected and/or prepared for you -- actually READ it, slowly, carefully, and completely.

Take Notes

And you ALSO NEED TO TAKE NOTES. I'm very surprised by the large numbers of students taking classes at SRJC who don't believe that note taking during a lecture, or a demonstration, or when reading a text book or a course material selection, is a crucial part of their learning process.

Skimming

Skimming through a page or a reading selection, grabbing only a few words or phrases from each paragraph, just glancing at the section headings, diagrams, and sidenotes, etc, is NOT an appropriate learning strategy for the first time through written material.

Skimming is an appropriate activity when reviewing something that you have already read carefully in the past, or when searching for a particular passage in something you've read carefully before.

Multi-Tasking

"Multi-tasking" as I'm using the term, is attempting to read course material, assignment instructions, or to work on assignments, while continually being distracted by texting, tweeting, answering email, surfing the web, updating your iPod, sharing music or videos with others, checking out and responding to the latest posts on your favorite Blog(s), talking on your phone, watching TV and/or YouTube, playing computer games, and/or having a conversation with someone, etc, etc, etc.

"Multi-tasking" is very often, really, only a defensive excuse for not paying full attention, in several areas simultaneously, and for poor performance in all of them, which is why I'm STRONGLY recommending that you resist it when working with the material for this course.

Digital Computers Are Designed for It, Humans Are Not

Computers, because of their digital processors can "pay" full attention to simultaneous tasks by using multiple processing chips connected in parallel, and even single processor computers can appear to do multiple tasks simultaneously, by breaking each task up into tiny steps, and by cycling sequentially through all the steps for all of the tasks, in many tiny time "slices", an enormous number of times per second.

Human beings on the other hand can pay FULL attention to only ONE thing at a time, and when trying to "multi-task" like a digital processor, end up with divided and scattered attention which leads to very inefficient learning. Human learning occurs by spending time paying close attention to the same topic, and by repeating the experiences with that topic over and over, while again paying close attention. Some human learning can occur using the digital time-slice method of multi-tasking, but it is not nearly as effective as single-tasking, and giving a topic your full and undivided attention.

If you regularly attempt to read and study by skimming and/or while "multi-tasking" you will be guaranteed to miss important details, and at times to completely misunderstand what is being presented, or what it is you are supposed to do on an assignment.

If you insist on approaching the course material, and the assignment instructions, in this haphazard and fractured manner, you will very likely NOT end up with a good grade in this (or any other) course.

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Where Next?

Next you should:

1. Take a quick tour of the major pages of this website, if you haven't done so yet, so that you know where everything is located and what is on every page
2. Then go back to the Syllabus page and read ALL of the information there, CAREFULLY and COMPLETELY, so that you're very clear about the various class policies -- you are responsible for following them, so it's best to know what they are.
3. After that go to the Assignments Calendar page and look over the weekly topics, noting the deadline dates, and considering the deadlines you have in other courses you're taking, as well as in your work and family life, so that you can plan ahead to avoid getting jammed up.
4. Next, open the Lesson 1 page and CAREFULLY and COMPLETELY read ALL of the information there,
   1. Read the textbook reading selections.
   2. TAKE NOTES on the highlights and important points that are presented in the reading selections,
   3. ACTUALLY work through each and every one of the Practice Exercises, as they will help reinforce your learning
      1. recreate each XHTML and CSS coding example, for yourself, on your computer, just as presented in the chapter
      2. this will help you learn XHTML & CSS, and
      3. it will also, immediately, reveal any gaps or holes in your understanding, so that you can focus in on reviewing what you thought you understood, in order to get clear about it, so you can make it work the way the textbook examples show.
   4. NEXT, read through the various assignment instructions and steps, carefully and completely, FIRST, before starting to do anything.
   5. Once you have a clear idea of the various things you need to do, go back and begin working on the sections one after the other.

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