Web Development for Beginners - A Curriculum

Azure Cloud Advocates at Microsoft are pleased to offer a 12-week, 24-lesson curriculum all about JavaScript, CSS, and HTML basics. Each lesson includes pre- and post-lesson quizzes, written instructions to complete the lesson, a solution, an assignment and more. Our project-based pedagogy allows you to learn while building, a proven way for new skills to 'stick'.

Click the image above for a video about the project and the folks who created it!

Pedagogy

We have chosen two pedagogical tenets while building this curriculum: ensuring that it is project-based and that it includes frequent quizzes. By the end of this series, students will have built a typing game, a virtual terrarium, a 'green' browser extension, a 'space invaders' type game, and a business-type banking app, and will have learned the basics of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS along with the modern toolchain of today's web developer.

By ensuring that the content aligns with projects, the process is made more engaging for students and retention of concepts will be augmented. We also wrote several starter lessons in JavaScript basics to introduce concepts, paired with video from the "Beginners Series to: JavaScript" collection of video tutorials, some of whose authors contributed to this curriculum.

In addition, a low-stakes quiz before a class sets the intention of the student towards learning a topic, while a second quiz after class ensures further retention. This curriculum was designed to be flexible and fun and can be taken in whole or in part. The projects start small and become increasingly complex by the end of the 12 week cycle.

While we have purposefully avoided introducing JavaScript frameworks so as to concentrate on the basic skills needed as a web developer before adopting a framework, a good next step to completing this curriculum would be learning about Node.js via another collection of videos: "Beginner Series to: Node.js".

Each lesson includes:

• optional sketchnote
• optional supplemental video
• pre-lesson warmup quiz
• written lesson
• for project-based lessons, step-by-step guides on how to build the project
• knowledge checks
• a challenge
• supplemental reading
• assignment
• post-lesson quiz

Lessons

	Project Name	Concepts Taught	Learning Objectives	Linked Lesson	Written Lesson	Sketchnote	Assignment	Starting Quiz	Ending Quiz	Video	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 function as a drag/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, call and 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	Layout and Route a Web Site	Learn how to create the scaffold of a multipage website's architecture using routing	Layouts and Routes	✅	🛑	✅	✅	✅	✅	Yohan
22	Banking App	Build a Login and Registration Form	Learn about building forms and handing 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