I believe that I am in a unique position in regards to how I’ve grown with this class. Because I earned an A.A.S. degree in Web Development in 2004 and have been in the field for the past 5 years, I can’t say that I’ve learned an awful lot in this course. That being said, I took this course mainly for the credits and in the hope that I could fine tune my JavaScript skills. I can say that it was good practice on some of the basics that I haven’t touched in a while.
I do not consider myself a “designer”, so I’m pretty happy with how my site turned out, appearance-wise. Consistency in design is something I am very passionate about, however, so I was glad to see a focus on that aspect of the design process. I am definitely more of a back end developer, focusing more on the functionality of the site, so the PHP/JavaScript portions of the course were definitely where I felt the most comfortable and where I was the most engaged. I was a little surprised to see these in this introductory course, though, because I’m not sure that the average person taking this course has been exposed to the programming logic required to make the most of those lessons. Either way, I found it fun and am glad I got to engage in something a bit more challenging than simple HTML or CSS.
I think the interview was a great assignment for most students. It’s important for people interested in Web Development to get a good understanding of what to expect in their future careers. I know many people who naively graduated thinking they would spend their days creating pretty pictures and making a ton of money from that alone. Imagine their surprise when they were asked to learn a whole new scripting language or to teach themselves HTML5. I would definitely rate this assignment a 5.
I do not consider myself a “designer”, so I’m pretty happy with how my site turned out, appearance-wise. Consistency in design is something I am very passionate about, however, so I was glad to see a focus on that aspect of the design process. I am definitely more of a back end developer, focusing more on the functionality of the site, so the PHP/JavaScript portions of the course were definitely where I felt the most comfortable and where I was the most engaged. I was a little surprised to see these in this introductory course, though, because I’m not sure that the average person taking this course has been exposed to the programming logic required to make the most of those lessons. Either way, I found it fun and am glad I got to engage in something a bit more challenging than simple HTML or CSS.
I think the interview was a great assignment for most students. It’s important for people interested in Web Development to get a good understanding of what to expect in their future careers. I know many people who naively graduated thinking they would spend their days creating pretty pictures and making a ton of money from that alone. Imagine their surprise when they were asked to learn a whole new scripting language or to teach themselves HTML5. I would definitely rate this assignment a 5.
