Skip to content
CourseraJavaScriptFree courseBeginner levelCertificate

Introduction to HTML5

The University of Michigan designed this curriculum and partnered with Coursera to give students the means to learn about HTML5 from the ground up. It’s the first of a five-part series and will take around 12 hours to complete. Once finished, students will be ready to move onto the next part of the series and delve much deeper into HTML5 concepts and applications.

Created by: Colleen van Lent

Produced in 2019

icon
Course Description

Thanks to a growing number of software programs, it seems as if anyone can make a webpage. But what if you actually want to understand how the page was created? There are great textbooks and online resources for learning web design, but most of those resources require some background knowledge. This course is designed to help the novice who wants to gain confidence and knowledge. We will explore the theory (what actually happens when you click on a link on a webpage?), the practical (what do I need to know to make my own page?), and the overlooked (I have a page, what do I do now?). Throughout the course there will be a strong emphasis on adhering to syntactic standards for validation and semantic standards to promote wide accessibility for users with disabilities. The textbook we use is available online, "The Missing Link: An Introduction to Web Development and Programming" by Michael Mendez from www.opensuny.org. This course will appeal to a wide variety of people, but specifically those who would like a step-by-step description of the basics. There are no prerequisites for this course and it is assumed that students have no prior programming skills or IT experience. The course will culmite in a small fil project that will require the completion of a very simple page with links and images. The focus of this course is on the basics, not appearance. You can see a sample fil page at https://intro-webdesign.com/html5-plain.html. This is the first course in the Web Design For Everybody specialization. Subsequent courses focus on the marketable skills of styling the page with CSS3, adding interactivity with JavaScript and enhancing the styling with responsive design. You can see a sample site for the capstone course at https://intro-webdesign.com/

icon
Instructor Details

Colleen van Lent

Colleen van Lent is a Lecturer IV at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she teaches various technology-oriented courses including introductory programming and Web development. Colleen's previous jobs include Associate Professor at California State University and positions at NASA JPL, the Naval Research Lab, and the NSA. She received her BS from Kent State University Honors College in Computer Science, and an MS and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, also in Computer Science. Her thesis was on Artificial Intelligence applications on the Nursebot Project, a robotic assistant for the elderly. Her honors include being chosen as a National Physical Sciences Consortium Fellow and a NASA Faculty Fellow. Colleen has always emphasized the idea of technology for everybody.

icon
More courses by Colleen van Lent

Free

Free

Free

icon
Reviews

5.0

947 reviews in total

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Yumei L on 3-Jun-19

Even though this course has Dr. Chuck's name associated, it is NOT of the same caliber. The assignments have spelling errors and the instructions contradict the examples given--many of the errors have been pointed out as far back as 9 months ago, and yet remain uncorrected. The quizzes are designed like traditional in-class quizzes: petty and full of "gotcha" type of questions, UNLIKE Dr. Chuck's quizzes that clarify and reinforce course material. The video lectures seem to be wordy and offer info that one can easily get online. Now and then there is a bit that might be useful, but overall a waste of time.

By Nova R on 20-May-19

tl;dr: I do NOT recommend this course. It is riddled with errors. Additionally, you risk not getting your certificate based on wrong information given to your peers to grade you for your final.This course has multiple errors in the quizzes and most egregiously in the instructions to your peer reviewers to grade your final project. All throughout the forums were people pleading with students not to mark them wrong based on the grading instructions but grade them based on the instructions to complete the final project. Here is a post in the forum. It is one of many and she explains it better than I can.=====Typos and errors in quizzes and final project! Frustrating.Michelle SchauerWeek 3 · 12 days ago · Edited
I was quite surprised at how often I found grade-critical typos and errors in the quizzes and final project. I checked other students' comments and saw that other students are frustrated about this also. Not good. There are quiz question-and-answer errors which are incorrect.
There are a couple of errors on the final project. For example, the instructions say to create an unordered list (HTML course). Then the peer review questions to correct another peer's work asks if the person created an ORDERED list. If they didn't, we're supposed to dock them a point for their "error". The peer review question SHOULD ask if the person created an unordered list, as the instruction clearly stated.
Examples of typos within quizzes:
(incorrect) instead of (correct - should have been this)
(incorrect) instead of (correct - should have been this)
There were quite a handful of errors similar to this on other quizzes as well. Frustrating when you're trying to learn and be tested fairly on your retention.
=====Additionally there doesn't seem to be any TA's or active involvement from the teacher. I've loved the Dr. Chuck courses from UMich but this course was terrible. It's a complete lack of respect for the open learning community to create a course, not test it for errors, and then have students beg in the forums for corrections and changes to something they paid for and have it be ignored. I'm paying for the Specialization and I have nothing but dread going into the rest of courses. Please look for a better option. The book, Learn to Code HTML & CSS, by Shay Howe was the best thing to come out of this. It's free on his website and I got more out this than the lectures. The teacher is just reading her slides and not very interactive. The book has codepen examples throughout and you'll get far more interactive learning by working through the chapters than sitting through the lectures.

By Pradeep P on 18-May-19

Faculty teach excellent.

By Mylen R on 7-May-19

Very basic, but gives a fundamental understanding of HTML5 doc structure, tags, and proper accessibility coding. Just enough challenge to be interesting, but no overwhelming. The more you invest on your own to experiment and read outside of the assignments, the more you will get out of this course.

By Ngassa J on 26-Apr-19

I didn't know about making my web pages accessible till this course. But now I know how important it is for my web pages to be accessible to all, for my html to validate and be semantically correct.

By Jean D C R on 11-Apr-19

Great course

By Troy E on 11-Apr-19

A very excellent start to HTML. Aside from the syntax, the instructor brings in brief histories of the evolution of HTML, best practice at designing websites and the topic of accessibility.

By Dan S on 9-Apr-19

Better Knowledge and Better software provide to facilities

By Srishti s on 6-Apr-19

very good explanation i was completely able to follow the teachings. a great tutor and coursera is great for bringing me this opportunity to study and acquire qualification.thank you

By Kaustubh D on 5-Apr-19

Very good for a beginner

By mohammed a on 2-Apr-19

The course is good And distinguished in providing lessons

By Dawood A on 30-Mar-19

This is the best HTML5 course for beginners.

Showing 12 of 947 reviews

icon
Quality Score

Content Quality
/
Video Quality
/
Qualified Instructor
/
Course Pace
/
Course Depth & Coverage
/

Overall Score : 100 / 100