Course teaches students to design websites

By Hannah White

Behind every beautiful website lies lines of code that tell the web browser how each item should look and function. AU’s “Introduction to Web Development” course helps to reveal the secrets under the hood of every site.

Taught by Paige Meeker, professor of coding and app development, the course teaches students to code their own webpages and offers them an edge in the communications field. The course introduces students to using HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and other web coding languages.

The class “...gives you a little bit of an edge to have on your resume that you can code in HTML, that you can use CSS, and that you can use software,” Meeker said.

Meeker said nothing more than a text editor is needed for basic coding.

“I like to start from scratch in coding,” Meeker said. As an introductory course, Web Development teaches the basics of developing and creating designs that are fully customizable.

Paige Meeker

AU Photo

Meeker said she encourages students to be creative in the course as it allows them the opportunity to create something from scratch rather than rely on a template-based web service.

The first couple of topics in the class, HTML and CSS, are core scripting languages for students to learn in regards to any programming.

“They are languages that say ‘I want the page to look a certain way’ and so there’s tags around it that say I want this this to be bolder, I want this to be a header, or I want this to be a paragraph or I want a list of things,” Meeker said.

The course also teaches students to code in PHP and Javascript as well as use web design software like Dreamweaver, and WordPress, she said.

“In the lab we have Dreamweaver, which is a high end professional grade software for web development,” Meeker said.