For the IDT 540 course, Systematic Approach to Web and Multimedia Design and Development, one of the two required texts was Web Development and Design Foundations with HTML5 (7th Edition) by Terry Felke-Morris. This is an impressive book, but I struggled with it for the course as it was a very comprehensive read.
I must start by saying that if someone wants to learn how to program in HTML5, or if I was teaching a course just on this language this would be the go-to text. It starts from the beginning with the history of the Internet and goes through an exhaustive description of page layout, how each of the elements on the page is created, and CSS. There are even sections on design hints and how to promote your website and even an introduction to JavaScript.
The book accomplishes all of this with in-depth discussions that are followed up with exercises that the reader can use to actually program what they just learned about. This is what constructivism is all about. It is easy to read, but it has to be taken slowly and there is just a lot of book to go through.
This is all great stuff, but it was just a lot more than what I needed for this course, or for my career, actually (it is 704 pages long and $130). I know that I will probably not go into programming online learning from scratch, but on the other hand it did give me a lot of insight into how web sites can be built. The text is current so I went ahead and kept my copy as I can use portions of it as a reference, but it is not going to be something that I pick up every day…
Thank you for checking out the blog today. Next time we will be taking a look at the other 4th semester course, IDT 545: Emerging Technologies and Issues in Teaching.
Felke-Morris, T. (2015). Web development and design foundations with HTML5 (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson
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