This week we learned about CSS or cascading style sheets. We went over how CSS works, how to apply it to HTML and markdown, and how to extend built-in styles in Jekyll.
I picked this week to do my semesterly recap because it was my down week, then I realized it was also the week we learned about style! I was instantly excited because I love style and thought I would be able to kill it this week with what we learned and with the semester recap, however, I couldn’t have been more wrong. For me and many of my classmates, this week was incredibly challenging. I believe that is because we each have a distinct vision for our blog and want to make it just right and when we don’t achieve that the first time we begin to struggle.
Before I get into the themes of our reflective posts and the nitty-gritty of this recap, I want to talk a little about how different each of our blogs are. After going through and reading everyone’s posts I began to see some distinct differences in everyone’s writing. For example, I saw Rebecca and Camryn used a fun, informal, and casual tone in their writing; it makes you feel like you know them as a friend. Then I saw people like Taylor and Brooke that used that in-between tone of informal and formal that shows their understanding of the topic as well as their fun side. I also got to see Sarah’s and her more formal writing style that shows her obvious mastery of the things we are learning that makes me quite jealous. We each have such a different way of writing that makes each of our blogs so special!
One of the first themes I picked up on in the reflective blog posts was that many of us are struggling with using CSS. Rebecca writes in her blog, “After spending a total of 3 different trial and error dates, I am at a loss for implementing my style into my blog at the moment.” Camryn says, “Unfortunately, the lessons of this week have not seemed to set in with me, because I have been trying for hours to get my navigation bar to look different in anyway, let alone move it to the left side of my blog page like I had originally planned.” And I totally agree with both of them because for some reason CSS and style have not clicked for me yet either. However, another thing I noticed that both of them wrote in some way is that they are not able to get their blog to look how they want it too and after trying for hours they had given up.
I, like Rebecca and Camryn, felt the same way, and thankfully I was able to attend Dr. Pilsch’s office hours to help understand CSS better. Rebecca also understands how great office hours are and writes in her post of how she is going to find a time to meet with Dr. Pilsch to discuss the problems she is having since she has work during office hours. Don’t mind me being a shameless plug for a minute but GO TO OFFICE HOURS…even if you aren’t that confused Dr. Pilsch is so cool and such a great resource.
| Another theme I noticed in the reflective blog posts is the use of outside resources to help better understand the concept. Brooke chose a youtube video to help better understand CSS and Sarah analyzed a web page. Brooke’s youtube video was titled CSS – Add Design to Your Website | Learn to Code and when talking about she says, “The website coding used in this video is simple and for beginners, but it was helpful in understanding the week’s hands-on activity.” That alone sold me on wanting to watch the video because I am all about coding for beginners! The website Sarah chose to analyze is also the website I talk about in my reflective blog post, however, we both draw on very different things. In mine, I talk about what I learned from it, and in Sarah’s, she went to the web pages source to learn more about the page and how it was made. Sarah talked about the web page by saying, “Viewing the page source, I can see that the doctype is displayed in HTML. However, when I look through the page source, it is clear that the CSS language has been implemented in their code as well.” |
I wanted to point out some of my favorite things that I saw when reading the blogs. I loved Taylor’s blog and her use of comparison. She compared the use of editing each element on a page to that of designing a new avatar on a game such as Skyrim and says, “For example, during the process of creating your own avatar for a game like Skyrim, you have the ability to change every physical characteristic thinkable, developing a character identical to yourself or however you prefer them to look.” I think her use of comparison led to her better understanding of the topic because it made it relatable and unique to her.
Finally, my favorite thing I read on a blog was what Sarah said in the last paragraph of her reflective post. “It is not a sin to use different languages in a project when a certain language falls short for the purposes you need it for. It is this very reason why having knowledge of multiple languages is necessary. HTML and Markdown are languages that may be able to change a few things on the actual display for a web site, but CSS is going to be that language best suited for this purpose.” This to me is just the perfect way to tie everything together in my opinion.
While this has been one of my more challenging weeks in this class, as I’m sure Camryn and Rebecca would agree, it has also been one of my favorites because I am being challenged and learning more as I go. Dr. Pilsch also noticed the struggles we had and gave us this week to catch up which to me was a huge blessing. So, check out my blog and all the others at the end of the week and hopefully we’ll finally have it styled the way we dream of.