Intro to HTML5 Course Overview

There are several challenges presented by the environment in which this course will be taught.

  1. Most students have little experience with computers and tasks such as navigating the file structure, creating folders and files, etc.
  2. The students will have limited time to actually modify the HTML documents due to a small number of available computers.
  3. The course should probably be taught in English as the available supporting documentation on the Web and elsewhere is overwhelmingly in English.
  4. For these students, English is a second or third language.
  5. A useful real-world application should be chosen as the class project to help the students see how HTML can be used and to provide repetition which will reinforce the learning process.

To help mitigate these challenges; the following approach is recommended.

For the class project, a basic HTML5 Tutorial web site will be created. This will provide the following benefits.

  1. Demonstrate a real-world use of HTML.
  2. Creating the Web site HTML files will provide the experience requred for using the computer file system.
  3. Provide a reference tutorial, written by the students, that they can use to recall key HTML subjects.
  4. Each page in the HTML Tutorial will be created with simplified English and will cover only one main topic to avoid confusion.
  5. The first pages will be created as Text files to allow the students to create the content without being confused by the HTML tags.
  6. The previous Text pages will be converted to HTML pages as the student learns the HTML elements required to make them true HTML pages. This provides many opportunities for repetition to reinforce the learning process.
  7. The previous Text pages will be updated with each new HTML element the student learns to gradually reinforce the learning process.
  8. Results in a tangible product the students can show to others and can say they built.

Course Objectives

  1. Provide a basic knowledge of proper typing skills.
  2. Provide a basic knowledge of the computer file system; including creating folders and files, navigating to them and referencing them in HTML.
  3. Teach the main HTML terms in English to provide the tools for continuing research with articles on the web and other HTML documentation.
  4. Include a representative set of HTML elements, tags, attributes and properties. Enough elements to be able to create a basic web page.
  5. Include links in the web pages to samples of other more comprehensive tutorials or articles on the web.
  6. Provide the opportunity to gain the necessary skills and experience for creating a basic website.
Overview