The Internet and Using Search Engines

Todays Agenda:

• Lecture: The Internet
• Search Engine Exercise

Search Engine Exercise:

Search engines allow you to search a database of web sites and files. Google and Bing allow you to search a directory of sites that have been registered by the site owners, for example yahoo. a Meta-search engine searchers other search engines, for example ixquick.

A good searching strategy is the key to finding the information you need:

Searching Tips:

• Become familiar with more than one search engine, understand that different engines compile data differently. For example, google's boolean search technique is based upon popularity, but not always relevance
• Be as specific as possible in your search terms. Use unique words or phrases
• Use a niche site for your search, for instance amazon, or wikipedia
• Use boolean operators in a meaningful manner (and, or, not)
• Pay attention to publishing dates, file sources. Not everything on the internet is true
• Don't give up easily, adjust your search terms. Experiment to find your results
• BE A NINJA. Try using the Advanced Google Search
• BE A SUPER NINJA. Try writing Advanced Google Search terms as code right in the browser!

Search Engine Ninja Exercise:

Research the questions below using a search engine or engines. Use advanced search techniques or specific sites to discover your answers. Compile the answers to all 10 questions and email them to me at swilson@santacruz.k12.ca.us

1. What does CSS and HTML stand for?

2. Who invented the worlds first Digital Camera?

3. What is the highest recorded temperature for Death Valley in June?

4. What is the HTML Tag that defines Emphasized Text?

5. How many products did Amazon sell last year?

6. Who sent the worlds first Email?

7. What is Digital Rights Management and how does it affect HTML5?

8. Who is Tycho Brahe and what part of his body is missing?

9. Who invented the font "Helvetica" and what is the meaning of its name?

10. What do the letters in HTTP and FTP stand for?

Compile your answers and email them to me. Make sure you include your name and title of this exercise in the subject of your email.

Thank You Web Design Class of 2015

Thank you to all my great students from this years ROP Web Design class. There were some very impressive portfolios and final projects and I look forward to seeing a few of you in my classes next semester.

This blog will go live again for the spring semester 2016 ROP Web Design class.

- Mr.W

End of Year Course Survey

Hello Students,
With current legislation regarding education in California and a looming budget crisis for California schools, it is more important that ever that we gather information about your experiences in ROP courses and your future plans for education and career.

Please click the link below and fill out the survey. It takes about 3 minutes and is very important to ensure that ROP courses are made available for future classes.

Link: ROP End Of Year Course Survey

Thank you!

- Mr.W

Web Design Final Project

Hello Students,
Now is the time to find a final project concept and begin working on it asap. Your final project should demonstrate your professional skills in web design, project management, programming, game development or digital media.

Final Project:
Choose from one of the options below and begin your final project asap:
Create a website for someone that needs one, could be a teacher, coach, friend or even yourself
Create a game, this could be a flash game or an HTML based choose your own adventure game
Propose your own idea. Do you have an idea for a final project? Speak to your instructor to get it approved.

All projects are due for review on our finals day.

Good luck everyone!

- Mr.W

Explore Programming Languages with Code Academy

Hello Students,
In this modern tech industry having a well rounded skill set in web design and programming languages is incredibly important to staying in demand. HTML and CSS are just the first components to creating websites that are compelling, interactive and intuitive. In this project you will explore other languages, complete 3 programming goals and complete one entire lesson in the language of your choice.

A gifted mathematician, Ada Lovelace is considered to have written instructions for the first computer program in the mid-1800s

Web Programming Language Exploration Project:

• Log into Code Academy and find the language skills section
• Complete the "Introduction to Javascript" and "Choose your own Adventure" modules
• Complete the "Introducing JQuery" module
• Complete the "Introduction to PHP" module
• Complete the "Python Syntax" and "Tip Calculator" modules
• Complete the "Introduction to Ruby" and "Putting the Form in Formatter" modules

When you have completed these modules, navigate to the GOALS section and complete these 3 modules:

• Animate Your Name
• About You
• Sun, Earth and Code

When you have completed the GOALS modules, you must choose on of the languages and complete its entire module, Javascript, JQuery, PHP, Python or Ruby.

Have fun! All progress should be complete by the 29th!

- Mr.W

Web Design Reverse Learning Project

Hello Students,

In this project you will research, write and guide the class through a learning exercise. Use the internet to research a specific topic or activity or use your own knowledge as a base for creating an engaging exercise. Follow the guidelines for writing interesting lessons below and be ready to present to the class. You can use movies, powerpoint presentations, hand outs or online resources to enhance your activity.

Web Design Reverse Learning Project:

Use all resources available to write and develop an fun exercise or activity that can be taught to the class in about 10 minutes or so. Follow the structure laid out below to format your lesson. Teach the class a skill that is useful and relevant to using computers, creating digital media, using the internet or other related IT skills, techniques or concepts.

Getting Started:

• Think of something you would like to teach to the class, must be related to web design, digital media, IT, internet or digital literacy skills... it could be a cool piece of code that enhances a website or a cool trick or hack you learned... thing of something fun that everyone can try
• Use the internet to research and gather resources, assets and information
• Use presentation software like powerpoint to create a presentation or use work to create hand outs, you could even use a video to help deliver your information or to engage the audience
• Follow the structure laid out below to create a compelling activity, a good lesson will have a hook to get the audiences attention peaked, information should be presented well and there should be some kind of hands on activity.
• Be ready to present and teach the class

How to write a good lesson for instruction:

Follow the outline below to create your lesson or project, try to have something for each section detailed in your presentation. Use my model lesson as a guide if you need more clarification.

Objectives and Goals: State the objective or learning outcome for your project. What do you expect people to be able to do when your lesson or activity is complete

Hook or Anticipatory Set: Use something to engage the audience and get their brains primed for learning. This could be an interesting image or even a video or a prop. It should be relevant to the material you are covering in your lesson

Lecture or Present: Talk about the material in your lesson or activity, provide some background information or history that is relevant. Discuss or present details about the material. A few bullet points or slides and images are all that is needed to frame the activity

Hands On Activity / Guided Practice or Independent Practice: Have a hands on activity for the class to engage in, or an independent practice activity for students to put their new knowledge to work

Model Lesson: How To Customize The Icon Of Your USB Flash Memory Thumbdrive:

New Assignment: Portfolio Website

Hello Students,

Your next assignment is to create a portfolio website that documents the skills you have developed in this course, documents the work you have completed and displays your prowess with writing html and css and incorporating graphics into your website. This is your opportunity to show off the work you have completed during this class and display the creative and technical skills you have developed. Your portfolio site must be rich in graphics and utilize the techniques from our previous projects. You are also required to write about yourself and to complete some research and write about your possible future career path, whatever that may be. You may draw upon and incorporate work you have completed any previous ROP class, or can include examples of any work or projects or hobbies that you are particularly proud of.

The organization of this site should mirror the ROP Career Portfolio.  Review the portfolio handbook in detail for tips on writing your letter of introduction and creating the other sections of your website. Download the ROP Portfolio Handbook to use as a guide for creating your own portfolio website.

Portfolio Website Technical Requirements:

• Your portfolio website must have the following sections:
1. Front page: file must be named index.html for proper functionality. Think of this as the cover of a book about you. This page can contain your letter of introduction
2. Career Development: This should contain your resume, your career research assignment and your letter of recommendation.
3. Work Samples: this should include graphic projects, animations, written assignments, lecture notes, artwork, previous website projects, etc. Anything you have created that makes you proud should be included as long as it's content is professional. Written details about each work sample must be included
4. Contact: This page can contain your email and any other links or contact information, no phone #'s or mailing addresses
• This project must be created with a text or code editing program such as Komodo
• Each page must display your web page title or name in the <title> area and self explanatory, such as "Seth Wilsons ROP Web Design Portfolio"
• Each page must contain the HTML 5 DocType declaration that will enable you to use the HTML Validator, your pages should strive to validate 100%
• Each page must contain the character encoding meta tag for utf-8 and each page must be formatted for utf-8 when created
• Each page must contain either graphic buttons or text links to the HTML and CSS validators. Make sure you use the code to validate as HTML 5. Put these at the bottom of the page or incorporate them into your page design so that they are not obtrusive
• Each page must be formatted with CSS and CSS3 or developed with Bootstrap and each page should be mobile friendly
• Each page should contain colors for text, backgrounds and link states
• Each page should use the same font families and use consistent sizing, spacing and style
• When complete the entire website must be less than 6Mb in file size so it can be uploaded to our servers. 

Portfolio Content Requirements:

• Have an example of everything required in the ROP portfolio handbook, letter of introduction, letter of recommendation, resume, work samples
• Take a photo of yourself to include in the front page, this photo can be turned into an illustration with Illustrator or processed with Photoshop if you like. A camera can be provided upon request.
• Research 1 possible career you are interested in and write a 1 page paper about the career, what does it involve, what is the salary range, what kind of education do you need, how do you break into the career. Include this in your "Career Development" section. You can use career locker for research, ask me for the password for access to career locker.
• Show your best or favorite work samples in the work samples section of your website, minimum of 3 examples must be shown, more is encouraged. You can include work from other art, design or ROP classes. Write a 1-2 paragraph summary for each work sample.
• Include your resume and letter of introduction in the career development section if your website. Do not include phone numbers or mailing addresses, only email addresses for contact info.

Design Style:

• Your website should be professional and clean looking
• Your website layout should be easy to navigate and text should be easy to read
• Each page should show the same menu at the top for easy navigation
• Your website should show good design choices for fonts, colors and style
• Your website should demonstrate the techniques, skills and abilities you have studies during the course of this class
• Your website should be viewable on mobile devices

Website Flow/Organization:

Your website must follow the flowchart below as closely as possible...

Meeting the minimum requirements above does not guarantee an A+. You must put the time and energy into the project and really use it as an opportunity to shine. Include more material and content and information to guarantee a stellar grade. Must be original work that you created, create some artwork, take some photographs, make a movie, write a paper... this is your portfolio, make it shine.




How To Add Validation to your website:
Validating HTML and CSS is a great way to demonstrate your coding skills. Use the code below at the bottom of your page to add a validate button to your pages...

This is an example of code to add both HTML and CSS Validate buttons to your webpage

This is how the Validate code above will be displayed, you could also use an HTML5 logo and CSS logo to make graphical buttons for your validators

How Your Portfolio will be evaluated:

• Contains required content and format
• Well organized
• Free of grammar errors
• ROP related work samples
• Shows creativity
• Shows skill development
• Appropriate for use in job search
• Professional yet creative appearance

Final Portfolios are due May 6th!

Grading for total of 10 points:

20 Points - Portfolio website meets assignment specs and requirements

20 Points - Portfolio contains all sections

20 Points - Portfolio links work correctly and is error free (including spelling and grammer)

20 Points - Portfolio has no missing graphics or elements

20 Points - Portfolio turned in on time and is awesome and is 6Mgb or smaller

Check out these collections of amazing portfolio sites for inspiration:

50 Excellent Designer Portfolio Sites

50 beautiful and Creative Portfolio Designs
Last Years Portfolio Contest Winner: Jasper

Check out these examples of web page portfolio designs from previous students:

Ok, stay focused, work hard and have fun!

 - Mr.W