The Build 1 course teaches basic coding skills. It is a self-paced course, but a humorous and intelligent teacher watches over your class and checks on your progress to ensure that you understand the material.
The course is divided into six lessons over a five week period. In each lesson, you learn new techniques and apply them into another webpage. The topic for each webpage is left entirely up to you, but the content has to be appropriate, as LVS is a family friendly site.
In Lesson 1, you learn the definitions of important terms and how to use a text editor to create your web pages. Then you set up your web hosting account and re taught how to name and manage your files and folders. After learning all the basics, you compile all of the elements that you need on every page into a template, which you can reuse every time you design a webpage. Now that you are off to a great start, you are shown how to use the W3C validators, which check your page for correct syntax. Then you set off to create your first webpage.
For my Lesson 1 webpage, I chose the topic of Star Wars Episode 4. As you can tell, I didn't know many techniques, but I felt like I had climbed Mount Everest.
In Lesson 2, you learn how to apply color to your webpages and how to insert hidden comments into your webpages. You also are taught the coding syntax for special characters, such as the copyright symbol, the ampersand, and other important keyboard symbols, and also the syntax for several different types of links.
For my second webpage, I decided to report on an unusual pet that most people despise. It's scientific name is Rattus Norvegicus, better known as the common pet rat.
In Lesson 3, you learn how to change the font of your webpage and how to apply various styling to the text as well.
For my Lesson 3 webpage, I wrote an informative paper about the history of the Boy Scouts of America. If you look carefully, you can see that the font I used is different than the default font in my other webpages
In Lesson 4, you learn how to code images, which adds a new look to your webpage. Alternatively, you are shown how to use thumbnail images in your page. Thumbnails are smaller versions of a picture that act as a link to the full-sized picture. You also learn how to apply classes using div and span tags. (If I just lost you, don't worry. It's something that you will understand if you learn basic coding.)
For my Lesson 4 webpage, I decide to talk about the Bernese Mountain Dog. You can see that the pictures I used were thumbnail images because they act like a link.
In Lesson 5, you learn how to apply margins, which displays as the colored bars on my webpage, and padding, which displays as space between the ends of the bars and the text in the bars. You also learn how to code tables, which I did't utilize until I created sixth webpage
For my Lesson 5 webpage, I presented some information about the University of Notre Dame, where I hope to attend college.
In Lesson 6, you learn how to get a better search engine ranking, something important for expert coders but of little significance in a beginner's webpage. You also learn how to create an index page, which showcases all of your webpages. You are currently reading my index page.
For my lesson 6 webpage, I wrote about my ten favorite books. I highly recommend all of them, and you can read my page for more information.
I hope that you have developed an interest in this class. If you have, you can visit the website for LVS Online, http://www.lvsonline.com/index.shtml, and register for this class, or you can learn more about the classes that LVS offers.
I would appreciate any feedback that you may have, and if you have questions or concerns, please email me.
