Tag Archives: HTML Introduction

The beginning steps of building structure

1 Reply

The highlight of this week in terms of assignments was being able to do lessons on Codecademy! For the longest time I was not sure what HTML and CSS stood for or the difference of these languages. I am happy to say that I finally discovered that HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and the purpose of this language is to structure content on a page. As for CSS, it stands for Cascading Style Sheet and it is the style that dresses up the structure. These languages go hand in hand and often work together to create a beautiful web page. I think the reason why I have always been hesitant of code is because I was afraid of not understanding the purpose of each language. However, these two languages have names that speak for themselves once you know what each letter stands for.

In Codecademy, I was able to pick up on the material pretty quickly. However, I felt like the experience of doing these lessons had similarities to learning a foreign language. During undergrad, I studied Arabic and had to learn different rules in order to read and write. With HTML, there are different headings and tags that can easily go wrong if you do not follow the HTML rules. It is similar in learning Arabic, it is possible to completely change the meaning of a word by not following the rules of which letters go next to each other. It is important to continue practicing a foreign language daily in order to exercise this muscle in your brain. So far, it seems like it will be the same case for HTML & CSS. I feel determined to build the structure and let the rules flow after I continue to practice and revisit these lessons on Codecademy in the future.

 

Learning Modules on Codecademy

Leave a reply

For this week’s module, I want to reflect in more detail about my experiences on Codecademy. Just to mention, even after the readings I still did not know what to anticipate for the actual activities and lessons.

First off, I liked the format and method that Codecademy used to teach HTML. I felt like the breakdown of lessons into different segments kept relevant and more advanced information lumped together, which made it feel more approachable and manageable. Also, viewing everything side by side in a single window was awesome! Seeing the detailed instructions that included pictures, the input area and the coded results all in one look made it easier to learn. I utilized the “Show Solution” option after two failed attempts and it corrected my mistake. This allowed me to go through the text and see the difference between what I had input and what was needed to follow the instructions. Information checking in the form of a quiz was beneficial to reinforce some of the new information I learned.

I had learned some HTML in elementary school when we made our own webpages through HTML, so a lot of the tags and attributes came back to me easily. However, I did have difficulty making the unordered lists and ordered lists appear with bullets or numbers. I will just have to keep working on it.