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Follow these steps to start using these resources:
- Fork the Repository: Click
- Clone the Repository:
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/Web-Dev-For-Beginners.git
- Join The Azure AI Foundry Discord and connect with experts and fellow developers
Web Development for Beginners - A Curriculum
Learn the basics of web development with this 12-week course created by Microsoft Cloud Advocates. The 24 lessons cover JavaScript, CSS, and HTML through hands-on projects like terrariums, browser extensions, and space games. Engage with quizzes, discussions, and practical assignments to deepen your understanding. This project-based approach ensures effective learning and skill-building. Start your coding journey today!
🧑🎓 Are you a student?
Check out the Student Hub page for beginner resources, student packs, and even opportunities to earn free certificate vouchers. Bookmark this page and revisit it regularly as new content is added monthly.
📣 Announcement - New Curriculum on Generative AI for JavaScript
Don't miss our new Generative AI curriculum!
Visit https://aka.ms/genai-js-course to get started!
- Lessons covering everything from the basics to Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
- Interact with historical characters using GenAI and our companion app.
- A fun and engaging narrative that takes you on a time-traveling adventure!
Each lesson includes an assignment, a knowledge check, and a challenge to help you learn topics like:
- Prompting and prompt engineering
- Generating text and images
- Building search applications
Visit https://aka.ms/genai-js-course to get started!
🌱 Getting Started
Teachers, we’ve included some suggestions on how to use this curriculum. Share your feedback in our discussion forum!
Learners, for each lesson, start with a pre-lecture quiz, read the lecture material, complete the activities, and test your understanding with the post-lecture quiz.
Collaborate with peers on projects to enhance your learning experience! Join discussions in our discussion forum, where moderators are available to answer your questions.
For additional study materials, explore Microsoft Learn.
📋 Setting up your environment
This curriculum comes with a ready-to-use development environment! You can choose to run it in a Codespace (a browser-based environment with no installations required) or locally on your computer using a text editor like Visual Studio Code.
Create your repository
To save your work, create your own copy of this repository. Click the Use this template button at the top of the page to create a new repository in your GitHub account with a copy of the curriculum.
Follow these steps:
- Fork the Repository: Click the "Fork" button at the top-right corner of this page.
- Clone the Repository:
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/Web-Dev-For-Beginners.git
Running the curriculum in a Codespace
In your copy of this repository, click the Code button and select Open with Codespaces. This will create a new Codespace for you to work in.
Running the curriculum locally on your computer
To run this curriculum locally, you’ll need a text editor, a browser, and a command-line tool. The first lesson, Introduction to Programming Languages and Tools of the Trade, will guide you through selecting the tools that work best for you.
We recommend using Visual Studio Code as your editor, which includes a built-in Terminal. You can download Visual Studio Code here.
-
Clone your repository to your computer. Click the Code button and copy the URL:
Then, open Terminal within Visual Studio Code and run the following command, replacing
<your-repository-url>
with the URL you copied:git clone <your-repository-url>
-
Open the folder in Visual Studio Code. Click File > Open Folder and select the folder you just cloned.
Recommended Visual Studio Code extensions:
- Live Server - Preview HTML pages within Visual Studio Code
- Copilot - Write code faster
📂 Each lesson includes:
- Optional sketchnote
- Optional supplemental video
- Pre-lesson warmup quiz
- Written lesson
- Step-by-step guides for project-based lessons
- Knowledge checks
- A challenge
- Supplemental reading
- Assignment
- Post-lesson quiz
A note about quizzes: All quizzes are located in the Quiz-app folder, with 48 quizzes of three questions each. They are available here. The quiz app can be run locally or deployed to Azure; follow the instructions in the
quiz-app
folder.
🗃️ Lessons
Project Name | Concepts Taught | Learning Objectives | Linked Lesson | Author | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
01 | Getting Started | Introduction to Programming and Tools of the Trade | Learn the basic underpinnings behind most programming languages and about software that helps professional developers do their jobs | Intro to Programming Languages and Tools of the Trade | Jasmine |
02 | Getting Started | Basics of GitHub, includes working with a team | How to use GitHub in your project, how to collaborate with others on a code base | Intro to GitHub | Floor |
03 | Getting Started | Accessibility | Learn the basics of web accessibility | Accessibility Fundamentals | Christopher |
04 | JS Basics | JavaScript Data Types | The basics of JavaScript data types | Data Types | Jasmine |
05 | JS Basics | Functions and Methods | Learn about functions and methods to manage an application's logic flow | Functions and Methods | Jasmine and Christopher |
06 | JS Basics | Making Decisions with JS | Learn how to create conditions in your code using decision-making methods | Making Decisions | Jasmine |
07 | JS Basics | Arrays and Loops | Work with data using arrays and loops in JavaScript | Arrays and Loops | Jasmine |
08 | Terrarium | HTML in Practice | Build the HTML to create an online terrarium, focusing on building a layout | Introduction to HTML | Jen |
09 | Terrarium | CSS in Practice | Build the CSS to style the online terrarium, focusing on the basics of CSS including making the page responsive | Introduction to CSS | Jen |
10 | Terrarium | JavaScript Closures, DOM manipulation | Build the JavaScript to make the terrarium work as a drag-and-drop interface, focusing on closures and DOM manipulation | JavaScript Closures, DOM manipulation | Jen |
11 | Typing Game | Build a Typing Game | Learn how to use keyboard events to drive the logic of your JavaScript app | Event-Driven Programming | Christopher |
12 | Green Browser Extension | Working with Browsers | Learn how browsers work, their history, and how to scaffold the first elements of a browser extension | About Browsers | Jen |
13 | Green Browser Extension | Building a form, calling an API and storing variables in local storage | Build the JavaScript elements of your browser extension to call an API using variables stored in local storage | APIs, Forms, and Local Storage | Jen |
14 | Green Browser Extension | Background processes in the browser, web performance | Use the browser's background processes to manage the extension's icon; learn about web performance and some optimizations to make | Background Tasks and Performance | Jen |
15 | Space Game | More Advanced Game Development with JavaScript | Learn about Inheritance using both Classes and Composition and the Pub/Sub pattern, in preparation for building a game | Introduction to Advanced Game Development | Chris |
16 | Space Game | Drawing to canvas | Learn about the Canvas API, used to draw elements to a screen | Drawing to Canvas | Chris |
17 | Space Game | Moving elements around the screen | Discover how elements can gain motion using the cartesian coordinates and the Canvas API | Moving Elements Around | Chris |
18 | Space Game | Collision detection | Make elements collide and react to each other using keypresses and provide a cooldown function to ensure performance of the game | Collision Detection | Chris |
19 | Space Game | Keeping score | Perform math calculations based on the game's status and performance | Keeping Score | Chris |
20 | Space Game | Ending and restarting the game | Learn about ending and restarting the game, including cleaning up assets and resetting variable values | The Ending Condition | Chris |
21 | Banking App | HTML Templates and Routes in a Web App | Learn how to create the scaffold of a multipage website's architecture using routing and HTML templates | HTML Templates and Routes | Yohan |
22 | Banking App | Build a Login and Registration Form | Learn about building forms and handling validation routines | Forms | Yohan |
23 | Banking App | Methods of Fetching and Using Data | How data flows in and out of your app, how to fetch it, store it, and dispose of it | Data | Yohan |
24 | Banking App | Concepts of State Management | Learn how your app retains state and how to manage it programmatically | State Management | Yohan |
🏫 Pedagogy
Our curriculum is designed with two key teaching principles in mind:
- project-based learning
- frequent quizzes
The program covers the fundamentals of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, along with the latest tools and techniques used by modern web developers. Students will gain hands-on experience by building a typing game, virtual terrarium, eco-friendly browser extension, space-invader-style game, and a banking app for businesses. By the end of the series, students will have a solid understanding of web development.
🎓 You can take the first few lessons in this curriculum as a Learn Path on Microsoft Learn!
By aligning the content with projects, the learning process becomes more engaging for students, and concept retention is enhanced. We also created several introductory lessons on JavaScript basics, paired with videos from the "Beginners Series to: JavaScript" collection, some of which were authored by contributors to this curriculum.
Additionally, a low-stakes quiz before class helps set the student's focus on the topic, while a second quiz after class reinforces retention. This curriculum is designed to be flexible and enjoyable, and it can be taken in full or in part. The projects start small and gradually increase in complexity over the 12-week cycle.
While we intentionally avoided introducing JavaScript frameworks to focus on the foundational skills needed as a web developer before adopting a framework, a great next step after completing this curriculum would be learning about Node.js through another video series: "Beginner Series to: Node.js".
Visit our Code of Conduct and Contributing guidelines. We welcome your constructive feedback!
🧭 Offline access
You can view this documentation offline using Docsify. Fork this repository, install Docsify on your local machine, and then in the root folder of this repository, type docsify serve
. The website will be served on port 3000 on your localhost: localhost:3000
.
A PDF of all the lessons is available here.
🎒 Other Courses
Our team has created other courses! Check out:
- Generative AI for Beginners
- Generative AI for Beginners .NET
- Generative AI with JavaScript
- Generative AI with Java
- AI for Beginners
- Data Science for Beginners
- ML for Beginners
- Cybersecurity for Beginners
- Web Dev for Beginners
- IoT for Beginners
- XR Development for Beginners
- Mastering GitHub Copilot for Agentic use
- Mastering GitHub Copilot for C#/.NET Developers
- Choose Your Own Copilot Adventure
License
This repository is licensed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more information.
Disclaimer:
This document has been translated using the AI translation service Co-op Translator. While we aim for accuracy, please note that automated translations may include errors or inaccuracies. The original document in its native language should be regarded as the authoritative source. For critical information, professional human translation is advised. We are not responsible for any misunderstandings or misinterpretations resulting from the use of this translation.