Welcome and orientation
Image by Danere. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Welcome! This page is an orientation to the coding side of both of Birkbeck’s postgraduate modules on digital media design.
- Web Development and User Experience
- Visual Design and Web Project
The coding sessions in these modules are designed with a single through-line.
Purpose of coding sessions
You will learn practical coding skills, develop your creative practice, and form critical perspectives on the issues that commonly face web development projects.
Finding the right balance of these three will be our constant aim.
Timeline of topics
Here are the topics to be covered this year.
Autumn
| Topic | Lecturer |
|---|---|
| Getting started with coding | Joe |
| Semantic and presentational HTML | Joe |
| Intro to CSS | Helena |
| Responsive CSS and flexbox | Helena |
| Accessibility in HTML and CSS | Joe |
| Grids and other CSS concepts | Helena |
| Advanced work with images | Helena |
| Review & project workshop | Helena, Joe |
| Organizing your CSS | Joe |
Spring
| Topic | Lecturer |
|---|---|
| Intro to JavaScript | TBC |
| Conditions and functions | TBC |
| Objects, loops and files | TBC |
| JavaScript in the browser | TBC |
| Visualising data | TBC |
| Timing and debugging | TBC |
| Crit | Helena, Joe, Inês |
Session format
Preparation
There is too much material to cover through lecturing, and we know that students learn best if you have ample time in class to practice, experiment, get help and feedback, and discuss each other’s work.
So, preparation is essential.
We usually ask you to watch coding videos, and we often also ask you to read academic articles or textbook chapters.
Coding videos - essential viewing so you can begin absorbing programming concepts and technical syntax and patterns before you get to class
Academic articles - perfect material to deepen your critical thinking
Textbook chapters - more systematic and thorough coverage of the same ground as the coding videos
Live coding
We usually begin each session by showing you coding examples and answering questions about things that you are confused by or stuck on.
It is basically a warm-up for the workshop, and a chance to refresh your memory of the assigned videos and chapters.
Workshops
This is the main event of the session, where you can put things into practice and experiment. Each workshop is different, but we try to provide step-by-step guide for the practical bit, and more open-ended prompts for creative and critical work.
Often the workshop will ask you to share a link to your work with everyone, and we try to include peer review as often as possible.
The practical part of the workshop is often “required” as homework (see Homeworks).
Show and tell
We end each session with an open call for you to share something you made. All you have to do is put your code on the projector screen, talk us through it briefly, run it, and take questions.
Many of us come to enjoy this part of the session the most, since we can see each others’ practice grow and evolve.
Homeworks
At the coding sessions, we usually assign homeworks to be completed within five days of the session. The homework is typically just a piece of what you made in the workshop, so if you are well-prepared and focused, it is possible to finish your homework during the session.
The purpose is simply to make sure you are making steady progress building your coding skills, and that you have low-stakes opportunities for instructor feedback.
Homeworks form a very small part of your assessment--one percent each--and are marked either as full credit or no credit.
Five homeworks are required if you want full credit. But you will have at least six opportunities to submit a homework, so you can miss one and still get the full five percent.
Resources and tools
Moodle
Birkbeck’s Moodle is the starting place for these modules and serves as the source of truth, if in doubt about something like a link, due date, or pre-sessional activities.
Web Development (this website)
Lecture materials are generally published and stored on this website. It is public so that it is easier to access and reference regardless of your enrollment.
We also store some helpful information that is unlikely to change here (like the page you’re reading), since it is often more accessible and flexible than Moodle.
GitHub
GitHub is where you store, share, publish, and submit code projects in these modules.
Repositories
Web Development is the main content repository where we keep lecture materials, workshop instructions, and code sandboxes and examples.
Canary is a private repository for collaboration, peer review, and discussion for students enrolled in 2024-25.
Your repositories will also be stored here, usually associated with the Birkbeck organization called “Birkbeck2”. To create Birkbeck-affiliated repositories, follow the relevant links on Moodle.
Discussions
There is a discussion forum set up inside the Canary repository for asynchronous sharing, feedback, peer review, discussion, and coding help.
Computers
You can complete the coding assignments on Birkbeck computers, but a personal laptop is encouraged if you have reliable access to one.
It is a good idea to have the same computer for a whole project. As your projects grow more complex, it can become difficult to switch between computers, because you have to install and configure several tools for version control, code editing, and scripting.
Main assessments
The main assessments are both websites that you create over the course of the term.
Autumn - a portfolio website built with HTML and CSS, along with a report that critically articulates your coding and design choices
Spring - a dynamic and/or interactive web project built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, using your chosen visual language, with a critical report