This series of classes gave me a much better understanding of the detail behind how a web page works. I was able to relate it to how I was using WordPress for my e-portfolio and how I had the ability to see the code for everything I typed and should I choose, could customize my site . At first, I thought that there was no way that I would grasp HTML and CSS and couldn’t imagine remembering all of the commands. I kept pages of screen shots and tried to figure out what I was doing and accidentally did the Fashion Blog web exercise but in doing so, learned the general set up of an HTML document. The detail in each command/keystroke explain in computer code just what we are typing on a page. It may be a paragraph, heading, spacing, images, videos, fonts, colors, essentially, all of the detail that we so easily complete with canned programs like Word. However, by knowing HTML and CSS, there are benefits to understanding how a webpage is created so that you can create what you want. The ds106 assignment that we did in X-Ray Google was an eye opener (literally) for me to be able to see all of the code that made up the pages that I looked at and to have the know how to actually change it.
Another interesting thing that I learned was that it may seem very easy to think about moving content on a page, but where content is placed needs to be instructed in code. In Medium I did my tutorial exercise on WordPress themes and appearance in the theme. Using a pre-made site can be easy but by knowing code, you are free to create the vision you have. By the end of the exercise, I understood more than I thought I would. It is great to now have the knowledge to know where to find these tools to build a website and to have a basic understanding of how web coding works.
