IMPORTANT NOTES
This page will be updated weekly to capture what we've accomplished and what's coming up next.
All students are expected to bring their laptops to each class.
See the OVERVIEW page for additional information.
CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS
Updated: 3/27/26
CODECADEMY UNITS
IN-PROGRESS (CURRENT):
Web Development (Frontend Layout/Design)
SHOULD BE COMPLETED:
Computing Basics
Source Control (Git)
Web Development (Frontend Layout/Design)
COMING UP...
WHAT WE'LL COVER NEXT:
CODECADEMY UNITS
Basic Skills & Information for Navigating Digital Life Today
Introduction to Personal Digital Security
(possibly - still not decided on this unit)
NON-CODECADEMY
Basic Skills & Information for Navigating Digital Life Today
Personal Digital Security & Basic Cybersecurity
Overview of Large Language Models (LLMs) / Generative AI
Things like ChatGPT / Google Gemini / Sora / etc...
SPRING '26 SEMESTER
WHAT WE'VE COVERED:
Week 1 (1/16):
Recapped my introduction and reviewed what we've covered so far. Reviewed the plan for the semester and discussed order to cover material.
No new students had laptops with them, so we couldn't begin getting new students set up with the necessary software and accounts.
Week 2 (1/23):
Returning students worked on any Codecademy units they needed to wrap-up from last semester and continue into the HTML unit.
New students worked on getting set up with the necessary accounts and software on their laptops.
Week 3 (1/30):
Got everyone (who was present) finalized in their software/account setups so we could move into looking at code.
Reviewed the basics of HTML structure and principles and discussed the plan for the build-out of the students' fan pages.
Week 4 (2/6):
Used a template HTML file to help make sure all students had the core of their fan page laid out in their own HTML file.
Finished going through the core Semantics (Basic Structural Tags, Landmarks, Hierarchy, Paragraphs, Lists, etc.) and touched on Rich Content (Images, Links, Tables, etc.).
Week 5 (2/13):
Reviewed Rich Content (Images, Links, Tables, etc.) a little more and answer any questions about the implementation/usage of it.
Introduced Utilizing Weekly Example Code from GitHub.
Week 6 (2/20):
Reviewed Concepts for Utilizing Weekly Example Code from GitHub.
Week 7 (2/27):
Introduced HTML Forms & Validation
Attempted getting everyone's fan pages pushed up to their GitHub repositories.
No Class (3/6)
Week 8 (3/13):
Attempted to Get Remaining Student GitHub Repositories Setup
Went over HTML Forms & Validation
Week 9 (3/20):
Everyone Has GitHub Repositories Setup
Reviewed New File Layout and README Files
Assisted with Getting Images Working / Explained Digging Into CSS Next Week
Asked Everyone to Have All Previous Codecademy Units Completed and Started on CSS Unit
WHAT WE'LL COVER:
Week 10 (3/27):
CSS Fundamentals (Hex Colors, Fonts, Backgrounds, Alignment, etc.)
The Box Model (Widths, Margins, Padding, Borders, etc.)
Positioning & Polish (Positions, Hovers, Transitions, Styles, etc.)
No Class (4/3)
Week 11 (4/10):
Layout Systems (Flex Boxes, Galleries, Gaps, Details, Summaries, etc.)
Accessibility & Review (WCAG, Aria, Focus, Contrast, etc.)
Discuss Students Going Further/Expanding Their Pages Independently
Review Students' Fan Pages
No Class (4/17)
Week 12 (4/24): [Last Day of Semester/Course]
Discuss Personal Digital Safety & Basic Cybersecurity
Discuss Large Language Models (LLMs) / Generative AI
Things like ChatGPT / Google Gemini / Claude / Sora / etc...
FALL '25 SEMESTER
WHAT WE'VE COVERED:
Weeks 1-12 (9/5, 9/12, 9/19, 9/26, 10/3, 10/17, 10/24, 10/31, 11/7, 11/14, 11/21, 11/28, & 12/5):
On the first day, I went through my background and did a Q&A with the students. I asked what they wanted to learn the most so that they could feel engaged and interested in what we'd be covering.
Most students requested coding along with some basics of cross-platform computer use and other general computing topics. I also surveyed where everyone felt their technical abilities were on a 1-10 scale to get a feel for everyone's aptitude.
In the first few classes we started installing the software they’ll need on their laptops (VS Code, Node.js, PNPM). It seemed much of this was new to the students and took longer than expected, extending into Week 3. This also helped me gauge how accurate everyone's self-assessments were to inform what order to cover topics and how quickly we might make it through them.
We worked to get Git installed on everyone's machines, and after finishing the installs of necessary software for most students, we set up free GitHub and Codecademy accounts.
We discussed any questions students had on the previously assigned Codecademy units at the start of each class.
We went over some hardware topics, including how to change memory (RAM) in a laptop, why computers use 1s and 0s to do their work, how our technology has been steadily scaling down in size and up in power/capability over the last few decades, and what "the cloud" (a datacenter) is, to name a few.
In the last few classes we began learning the basics of web programming, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and students started creating their own fan pages for whatever topic they were interested in.