Welcome to Introduction to CSS3. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, a method of styling your HTML documents with various colors, fonts, layouts, and spacing. But that is just the beginning. You can also do some "cool" stuff such as creating transitions or adding animations. There are so many things you can do with CSS, that we focus on the following:
Throughout the entire course there will be an emphasis on the importance of accessibility. Not only will you style your site, but you will test it and other sites on the POUR accessibility principles to ensure that your styling is enhancing your site, not putting up unseen roadblocks.
This course assumes that you already know how to write HTML code and are ready to style your pages. In each module you will be asked to do the following:
The information has been broken down into pieces to help you learn the material in the smallest chunks that still give you enough information to do something with it. The goal is to give you the ability to listen to these during any time you have. You will find that some of the videos have material that makes sense to you at once. Sometimes you may want to replay other videos to clarify the material.
You may find that you can speed the videos up and still retain the information. On the other hand, my mom is always telling me I talk too quickly so you may want to slow the videos down. The important thing is to find something that works well for you. Use the in-video quizzes to help you gauge how your learning is going.
Some of the videos are not traditional lectures, instead they are videos where I demonstrate the concepts from an earlier lecture. I highly recommend that you code along with me while you watch these videos. The key to success in this course is in writing code. I put these videos in so that you have something specific to practice. It is also a great way for you to see how often I mess up when I am coding!!
Each module will include reading material. It is impossible to learn everything you need to learn just by listening to the lectures. There are suggested readings to go along with this course. I also encourage you to seek out other resources online. Anyone who wants to work with technology needs to understand that it is important to update your skills.
The first three modules will each have a graded quiz. These quizzes are intended to reinforce your confidence in the material, not "trick" you. As often as possible each question will be linked to a specific lecture or reading. You can take the quizzes as many times as you like, but there is a limit on how many times you can take each quiz in a certain time period. Occasionally I include an ungraded quiz to help students track their current progress and prepare them for the graded quiz.
There will be three peer graded assignments in this course: they are at the end of Week One, Week, Two, and Week Four. You are actually ready to start the final assessment by the end of the third week of class, I just wanted to provide some examples to accompany the final project.
There will also be optional material provided in many of the modules. These may range from links to recent articles to videos on pioneers in the fields of design and accessibility. None of these materials will be required for the quizzes, but rather provide additional ways for you to branch out and learn more about the history of the field or the emerging ideas.
Communication for this course is done via the Discussion boards. The best way to utilize the discussion board is to search for your topic before posting. If you can't find an answer, please try to post your question to the appropriate week. The mentors and Course liaison do a great job of helping people. And of course we rely on students to help each other as well. If you want to contact me directly, I do check my ColleenAtUMSI Twitter account. I can not respond to emails.