Week 1
Welcome to Web Technologies
(MART 441)

Overview of the Course

Building on the principles and techniques covered in Intro to Web Design ( MART 341 ), this project-based class focuses on media integration, interactivity, client-side development, and server-side development for the presentation and development of artistic websites.

This online advanced web technologies course will explore the latest in web technologies. This will began with a refresher of HTML5 and CSS3. Next will be a thorough exploration of JavaScript (JS) for client-side site development and interaction.

Objectives

At the conclusion of this semester, students should;

• Feel comfortable creating static sites with advanced HTML5 & CSS3 techniques.
• Be capable of using JavaScript (JS) to create “interactive elements” and manipulate the DOM.
• Be capable of incorporating external JS libraries, such as d3 or tone.js to create engaging sites.

What to Expect

This course will force you to learn and adapt to new technologies, while also thinking about design, and content creation. Some weeks will lean more technical in nature, while others will lean more creative-based.

Just as the content focus will shift, so to will the work amount. Some weeks, especially those when new topics are being introduced, have a heavier workload. The goal of this is to make you practice with these new technologies and techniques. Other weeks will slow down and allow you to practice at a more exploratory pace.

You should plan;

• 3 hours a week to work through the course website content (what you are doing now).
• 3-9 hours a week to work on concepts, code assignments, studying, and practicing.

Class Goals

There are 4 high-level goals for this course;

1. Learn how to problem solve. (More specifically, how to break a problem down into sub-problems that are easier to solve by themselves)
2. Adapt to constantly changing technological paradigms by learning how to learn. (Skills acquisition.)
3. Combine technical and artistic practices through inquiry and iteration.
4. Adopt and use professional practices.

Overview the Rest of This Week

The rest of this week will introduce the following;

• Information about instructors
• Syllabus
• Review the CLI (Command Line Interface) & Bash
• Review;
  • GitHub accounts
  • issues forum
  • Creating a new GitHub Repo
  • Converting a repo to a GH-Pages site
  • building a simple simple site following Responsive Web Design (RWD) guidelines
• Go over how to submit homework.