LIS 390W1A - Course Narrative

• Class 1: Introduction

Welcome

• Welcome, introduce self.
• Introductions, in the following format:
  • Name
  • Department
  • What are your interests (e.g., what motivates you in life, why do you find your major interesting, etc.)
  • What do you hope to learn by taking this class

Group Exercise

I would like us to conduct a brief group exercise so that you can get to know your classmates and so that I can learn about your familiarity with the internet and with the web in particular. Please break up into groups of two, and partner with somebody you don't already know. If there is an odd number of people, one group of three is fine, but nobody in that group should know each other. Then after introducing yourselves to each other again, please ask each other the following questions. Take notes on your partner's answers, as you will be presenting his or her answers to the class afterward. You have 10 minutes.

• How much time do you spend online?
• Have you played games online? Which games?
• Have you ever shopped online? At what stores?
• Have you reserved a book online from the library?
• Have you done homework online?
• Do you blog?
• Do you use Facebook?
  • Is this a stupid question to ask? Why or why not?
• Do you already know HTML?

Brief Overview of the Class

In this class we will primarily be focusing on the world wide web and the various technologies that make using the web possible. The goal is to provide you with a basic conceptual understanding of how it all works, so that you can both create your own web content, and be able to hold intelligent conversations about the web. The purpose of this class is pragmatic. Five years ago, it might have been possible to teach you everything you need to know about the web to become an expert. Today, web technologies are emerging and changing so fast that it is impossible within the scope of this class to truly engage with all the technologies you might want to learn or know about. Thus, the purpose of this class is to give you a working, foundational knowledge that will prepare you to learn about any aspect of the web you are interested in. It is also to teach you how to learn about new, emerging, and changing technologies so that you can teach yourself as things change and evolve.

There are five things this class is geared to impart:

1. An ability to create basic web content.
2. An understanding of various ways in which a person can access content.
3. An ability to research new web technologies and techniques and and ability to keep up with changes to known technologies and techniques.
4. An ability to evaluate the affordances of technologies which may be useful for supporting the creation or access of content
5. An understanding of the historical and conceptual motivations that have and continue to shape the development of the web.

More specifically what I hope you will learn in this class:

• A general understanding of how the Internet and the World Wide Web work.
• An understanding of various methods of how to get content up on the web, and a general understanding of how they work.
• The ability to use HTML and CSS to create content and the knowledge of what is required to publish that content.
  • We will not be learning how to create dynamic web pages.
• General knowledge of some different technologies that exist for making content available on the web such as blogs and wikis.
• An understanding of how to evaluate these kinds of technologies for the purposes of your project.

Why won't we be learning how to create dynamic pages? Several reasons:

1. Pragmatic: The difference between static and dynamic pages is the difference between markup and programming
   • Markup is enhancement of text (or, theoretically, media in general).
   • Programming is telling the computer how to perform a particular function.
   • Programming is beyond the scope of this course.
2. Historical: This course is intended to be an introduction to HTML (primarily).

However, the internet and the web are rapidly changing, so what we cover is somewhat flexible: tell me what you want to learn, and I'll see if we can cover it.

Administrative Stuff

Please see the Administration page of this site.

Assignments & Grading

Please see the Assignments & Grading page of this site.

Expectations & Philosophy

Please see the Philosophy section of this site.

Lab 1

Lab 1: Introduction to HTML: How Easy is Easy?