Course Description
Course Details
You may already know how to use HTML and CSS to create websites. If so, you're ready to add more power to your programming with JavaScript. This programming language lets you add interactivity to your pages by creating features such as buttons, picture carousels, and collapsible panels to your Web pages. The course begins with the basics of JavaScript code and then moves on to more advanced topics. You'll learn how to define what happens when a user clicks a button or presses a key on your pages, and see how JavaScript enables your pages to make "if . . . then . . . else" decisions about what to do based on circumstances. You'll also get a chance to try out loops and timers to create animation effects. Throughout the course, you'll get plenty of hands-on practice to give you the experience you need to really understand how JavaScript works. And since no JavaScript course would be complete without a discussion of jQuery, we cover it as well. This free "write less, do more" JavaScript library has become virtually synonymous with modern Web and mobile app development. By the end of the course, you'll understand how to use jQuery to catapult your basic JavaScript knowledge to incredible new heights. This course assumes students already know HTML and CSS. JavaScript is always used with these two programming languages, not as an alternative to them.
How It Works
This course is fully online, you require internet access and an email account. The course duration is 6 weeks, followed by a 2-week period to complete the final exam (online, open book). Lessons are released on Wednesdays and Fridays of each week, for a total of 12. You are not required to be online at any specific time. In addition to the specific lesson content, there is a discussion board with each lesson and often there is an optional assignment to apply the learning. Following each lesson, there is a short multiple choice quiz. Your score on these quizzes does not count towards the final mark but completing these helps solidify your learning as well as prepare you for the final exam. The final exam is an open-book, multiple choice exam and you need to achieve a minimum of 65% on the final exam to pass the course. There is only one opportunity to pass the exam. A certificate of completion from WatSPEED is available within four weeks of successful completion of each course and can be accessed in your student portal. Many of the Ed2Go courses are eligible towards the various online certificates offered by WatSPEED.
Requirements
A test editor or authoring tools for writing HTML and CSS code, and the knowledge to use that too. Students should also have a good understanding of HTML and CSS prior to taking this course. Successful completion of Introduction to CSS3 and HTML5, and Intermediate CSS3 and HTML5 highly recommended.
Syllabus
Lesson 1 - What Is JavaScript?. In today's lesson, you'll get right into it and learn what JavaScript is, where it came from, who uses it, and why you want to learn it. Most important, you'll learn how and where to write JavaScript. And we're not talking about just history, theory, or concepts. You'll go hands-on, and by the time you finish this first lesson, you will have already created, tested, and edited some real JavaScript code.
Lesson 2 - Executing Scripts. Successful JavaScript programming requires controlling not just what a bit of JavaScript does but also when it performs its task. Today's lesson will show you how that works and introduce you to the concept of event handling, which allows you to write code that responds to various events, such as clicking an item on the screen.
Lesson 3 - The Document Object Model. Today's lesson is all about the Document Object Model (DOM), a set of rules and words you use to access and manipulate the elements of a Web page. You'll also learn about variables in today's lesson, which are temporary placeholders for information that can vary. While such terms and concepts are often scary to the new developers, they actually turn out to be quite easy to understand once you remove the shroud of mystery.
Lesson 4 - Dates, Numbers, and Decision-Making. Code that makes decisions is the hallmark of all modern interactive websites and applications. In today's lesson, you'll learn about JavaScript's ability to make if . . . else decisions (If this happens, do this, or else do this). You'll also learn about data types, strings, numbers, and dates, and how and why programming languages treat these types of information differently.
Lesson 5 - Search My Site Code. Today's lesson will give you some Search My Site code. This is particularly handy for larger multipage sites, where users may want to search for a particular word or phrase within your site without having to go through the site one page at a time. And unlike some services that charge you money for this sort of thing, the method you'll learn here is free of charge. And as an added bonus, you'll learn how to add drop-down list controls to your pages.
Lesson 6 - Fun With Music. In today's lesson, you'll learn to use JavaScript to add sound effects, background music, and custom music player controls to your Web pages. You'll also learn how to set HTML attributes and CSS styles through JavaScript and even to test the user's browsers for compatibility with modern HTML5 features.
Lesson 7 - Building a Picture Carousel. In today's lesson, we'll start on a picture carousel that allows users to click or cycle through thumbnail images, seeing an enlargement of one at a time. These can be a fun and useful addition to any website. Along the way, you'll learn some tips and tricks for using JavaScript with pictures and some new programming concepts like global variables and string manipulation.
Lesson 8 - Fun With Arrays and Loops. Today's lesson is all about arrays and loops. As alien, boring, or scary as those things might sound, they're not that difficult. And they're the main constructs around which some of the best interactive elements, like slideshows and carousels, are built. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to create your own JavaScript arrays and loops and start getting a handle on how you can apply them toward building more interactive Web pages.
Lesson 9 - Timers and Transition Effects. Bringing motion to Web pages requires controlling the speed at which things happen. Today's lesson is about the two main ways you can control speed: JavaScript timers and CSS transitions. You'll also see how you can use JavaScript to trigger and control CSS transitions, which allows you to get some cool effects with minimal coding.
Lesson 10 - Introducing jQuery. JavaScript is such a popular language, people have written many libraries to extend and simplify its use. Perhaps the most widely used and well known is jQuery. In today's lesson, you'll learn what jQuery is, where to get it, and how to get started using it in your own websites.
Lesson 11 - Creating Collapsible Panels and Accordions. In today's lesson, you'll build on what you learned last time about jQuery to add some powerful new techniques to your arsenal. Specifically, you'll see how you can use jQuery to create collapsible panel and accordion controls. These are custom controls that allow you to create more modern-looking websites in which users can click to expand information, making your site more efficient, effective, and easier to use on touch screens.
Lesson 12 - Using jQuery Plug-ins. jQuery is more than just a JavaScript library. It's a complete ecosystem that includes lots of prewritten code commonly referred to as jQuery plug-ins. There are thousands of free plug-ins available, and they provide for all kinds of slideshows, carousels, touchscreen interfaces, and countless other features that you can add to your own creations, for free, with minimal fuss. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to find jQuery plug-ins and incorporate them into your own site.
