19Jan2016 – Getting ready to learn HTML and CSS
I know the idea of learning HTML and CSS seems scary, but even more advanced programming languages and site developing requires a good understanding of these two systems. I’ve been researching good places to start learning and have found the following resources:
- http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/01/21/7-ways-to-start-learning-how-to-code-right-now-for-free/
- CodeAcademy is listed (https://www.codecademy.com/) and is a nice way to get started. If you try any of the others, let me know how they work!
2Dec2015 Virtual Meeting
Hi everyone,
Since we won’t be meeting in person, Jack and I have created some activities for you to do on your website, and we can use the forum I set up for this project (http://www.easthills4h.org/forums/forum/east-hills-general-forum/website-building/) to chat and talk together. For the most part, though, these are individual activities, and we will keep going with them when we meet in January.
–Learning HTML:
We found some good starting places in learning HTML, but the most important thing for you to do is to look at your own pages and your own blog posts. You will notice at the right hand top of your editing box is “visual” and “text”. The Visual mode is HTML mode, and if you switch back and forth, you can see what HTML tags are being used to turn your text into your webpage.
But of course, some explanations are nice too. Here are some links:
1. Starts from scratch and in easy to understand language: http://www.lissaexplains.com/html.shtml
2. Jumps right in and at higher level: http://www.goodellgroup.com/tutorial/chapter1.html
3. And if you like videos in learning, Khan Academy has lessons: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/html-css/intro-to-html/v/making-webpages-intro
Of course you don’t need to read or watch all the lessons, but see if you can share 1-2 HTML tags in the forum below with us. And if you are inspired, go ahead and read as much as you like!
–Putting up a calendar on your blog
Can you put a calendar up on your blog? I can send you a list of events from the East Hills calendar to give you some content, but your theme will determine if using your calendar is easy or hard, or if it will be useful. Share comments in the forums.
–Exploring themes
And finally, because your choice of themes is so important, we are going to play with some more themes. Remember, if you change to another theme and then back to your original theme, it will keep/save all of the content and changes you made to the original theme. Of course, if you make changes in the new theme, and then go back to the old one, those changes will be kept also. But anyway, you can feel free to try out as many themes as you like and you can always return to your original one. I just want you to see how different themes give you more flexibility and control over certain parts of your website. Once you start learning HTML, CSS, short codes and other programming, you can tweak websites to your heart’s content. But we all need to start somewhere, so we are dependent on our themes. Please try out these themes and let us know what you think:
Hueman
Swiss
Surfarama
Either share in the forums some differences you found between your current theme and the above, or be ready to discuss at the next meeting. Here’s a good beginner article on the Edublog site about choosing themes: