A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or
more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two
months apart.
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons
are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have
to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until
the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each
lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such,
we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final
exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work,
including the final exam.
Week One
Wednesday - Lesson 01
In this lesson, we'll review some of the basics, and take a fresh new look at how CSS and XHTML combine to define every page as a document tree. You'll gain insight into how cascading and inheritance work. Understanding these concepts will help you get more mileage out every line of code you write.
Friday - Lesson 02
In this lesson, you'll explore the document tree in more detail, and discover new ways to create powerful, flexible CSS style rules. You'll discover the universal selector, descendant selectors, shorthand properties, and more. You'll use these new techniques throughout the course to create more powerful style sheets and better Web pages.
Week Two
Wednesday - Lesson 03
Nothing jazzes up a Web site like a good page layout. In this lesson, you'll discover techniques for designing and creating flexible table-less page layouts. You'll learn to plan and implement a page layout with minimal effort using modern CSS and XHTML techniques.
Friday - Lesson 04
Today, we'll go over everything you need to know about CSS floats. You'll learn the techniques the pros use to create complex page layouts using relatively simple code based on floats and wrappers. The vast majority of Web sites you view every day use these very same techniques.
Week Three
Wednesday - Lesson 05
In the ever-changing world of Web design, maintaining creative control over every aspect of your Web site isn't always easy. In this lesson, you'll discover how to use semantic markup to minimize coding, maximize productivity, and maintain a consistent look and feel across different brands of Web browsers.
Friday - Lesson 06
It's all about images. Today, you'll learn new ways to use pictures in modern elastic page layouts. You'll discover new techniques that allow pictures to grow and shrink, without distortion, to adjust to the user's preferred text size and screen magnification.
Week Four
Wednesday - Lesson 07
In this lesson, you'll learn techniques for creating highly accessible, fully elastic navigation bars. You'll learn ways to use background images to spice up your navigation bars. And you'll discover techniques the pros use to indicate the current page in their navigation bars.
Friday - Lesson 08
If your site is too large for a single navigation menu, drop-down menus may be your answer. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to use alternative technologies like Flash or JavaScript to create drop-down menus. As you'll learn in this lesson, you can do it all with CSS and XHTML alone!
Week Five
Wednesday - Lesson 09
In this lesson, you'll discover more ways to gain total control over the size and position of every element in your page. You'll learn how to deal with tricky situations in narrow sidebar columns. You'll master the techniques for controlling the vertical positioning of elements using modern CSS techniques.
Friday - Lesson 10
What can you do if your text doesn't fit in the allotted space? In today's lesson, you'll discover new techniques for managing overflows and scroll bars. You'll learn how to use captioned images in pages using modern CSS and div tags. And you'll uncover the techniques the pros use to maximize search engine optimization in pages with complex layouts.
Week Six
Wednesday - Lesson 11
These days, much of Web design is about accessibility. In this lesson, you'll learn how to make your pages more accessible to people with sensory and motor disabilities. And you'll find out about a new and easy technique for making printer-friendly versions of your pages using a few simple CSS style rules.
Friday - Lesson 12
Step beyond the boundaries of CSS and XHTML, and learn about server-side tools. In our final lesson, you'll learn how to use content across multiple pages in your site via SSI (Server Side Includes).