Now that you have gone through the syllabus, along with its technical details and policies, lets talk about how this course will actually look like.
There will be a lot of reading. But I will also supplement the course with some synchronous lectures to hopefully help guide and aid along the way. I recognize that this is not easy stuff. Don’t worry! We will get through this together even online!
There will also be a lot of code examples. These will show up in your browser and allow you to see exactly what is occurring. In addition, there will always be download buttons for the code, so that you can play with it on your own.
Remember, you are learning a new language, this means you will need to take time to explore, play, dissect, rebuild, break, etc. You won’t hurt anything by breaking stuff… it makes it more fun :-)
See above in the Text & Reading portion. I will try and help by creating videos and posting ones that I think are helpful as well.
This course takes time. Some things might be easier that others. However, we will ramp into the course slowly over the next few weeks. But, you should set aside time now in your schedule for course work.
This week is a chance for you to get [re-]familiarize yourself with tools on your computer, absorb the syllabus, revisit responsive web design, and schedule out time in your week for class work.
This course will mostly run as weekly modules.
When a module is released (i.e., it goes live on Moodle and this site), you will have one week to work through it, complete the homework, and submit your homework. You homework will always be due by 11:59 PM on the Monday of the next week. Please don’t wait until 11:59 PM to submit your homework. Everyone tries and the Moodle might be on hiatus and then sad things can happen.
For example, this module is opening on Monday, January 13th. Therefore, you have through next Monday, January 20th to complete the module. Likewise, your homework is due Saturday by 11:59 PM.
You should consider anything within the course lecture content under a { TODO: } section to be part of your “homework”.
You will receive additional directives and notes about homework assignments on the Moodle Shell every week.
Most homework assignments will be a public website of some sort that you create. These links will then be submitted to a forum behind the Moodle firewall. This will allow you and your classmates to see each others assignments, as well as how you each chose to solve the set of problems, without posting links for the whole world to see. I think it is critical that you are aware of the work each other is making. This is my current solution to address this need. Further instructions will be provided about how to do this.
When you have problems in this course, you have a number of solutions available to assist you in solving them. The following list is the order I would suggest you follow for problem solving.
A quick list of these links is available from the “Help” menubar tab above.