Access and use of the internet are now more important than ever. With limited in-person access to businesses, being able to effectively communicate through a web page can be a lifeline. Instructor Fadi Labib, is offering a new class for high school students called Web Design Using Bootstrap and Javascript. I interviewed Fadi on his new class, what he has in store for his students, and what he’s most excited to share:
Q: Can you briefly explain what Bootstrap and JavaScript are? What roles do they play in web design?
FL: Bootstrap is a CSS Framework (CSS is the standard of styling web pages) that makes it easy to build responsive mobile-first front-end web pages. This is what many companies use today for front-end. Bootstrap takes out numerous hours of coding and allows building professional web pages that work on any device using minimal written code. Achieving the same results with just plain CSS is very complicated and time-consuming. With Bootstrap, no one needs to re-invent the wheel.
JavaScript is a programming language, just like Python, C++, C, and Java are also programming languages. Learning things that are common to all of these programming languages like the concept of loops, logic, variables, function, etc is very important. Most of the things I will be teaching about JavaScript can also be done with Python, C++, or C; it will be different of course, but the basic idea is the same.
JavaScript is indispensable in modern web development. People might use multiple frameworks to build full-stack web apps (like Ruby on Rails, Django, Angular, ASP.NET, etc), but in most of those cases, using JavaScript is still needed. JavaScript allows adding interactive functionality to web pages and is rather easy to learn.
Q: What is the most beneficial aspect of your class? Why should students learn Bootstrap and JavaScript if they are interested in web design?
FL: The most beneficial aspect of this class is learning how to use multiple technologies— in this case, simple HTML and CSS, Bootstrap, and JavaScript. In this class, we explore how to make them all work together to create commercial level web-pages using hands-on projects. Commercial web pages today involve more than just simple HTML and CSS; especially, for mobile-first responsive web apps.
Q: What is the coolest thing your students can learn in this class?
FL: In this class, students will learn to create web pages that can work on any screen-size without writing too much code. They will also learn to create a shopping cart system, build data tables that can be sorted, filtered, paginated, printed, and exported to multiple formats using very minimal code, and still learn basic HTML and CSS. To build these functionalities from scratch is relatively time-consuming.
Q: What are you most excited to teach your students?
FL: I am excited to teach the student how to build web-pages similar to the one built by corporations using minimal code. It's a great introductory class where you can see amazing looking web-pages with very basic coding knowledge. You get to see amazing results quickly.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to speak to about this class?
FL: This class would pave the way for a student to learn other programming languages and also come out with a better understanding of how industry-level websites involve multiple technologies and not just one.
Fadi Labib, BS, Computer Science also holds a Business Cyber Vulnerability Analyst Certification. Fadi has worked at McAfee as a Cloud Engineer and with Portland General Electric as a Cybersecurity Engineer. He enjoys explaining concepts to others in an easy and fun way and is dedicated to sharing his passion for computer science and security concepts with students. Fadi can teach classes in both English and Arabic.
Web Design Using Bootstrap and JavaScript starts on October 10th for students in grades 9-12.