Introduction to Web Programming

March/April 2013

Introduction to Web Programming was a 5-week course I taught at Artisan's Asylum. It was a boostrap course in HTML, CSS, Python, and Django. The official description:

Always wanted to learn programming? Have a great idea for a website? Meant for the programming novice, this highly interactive class will teach you the fundamentals of programming by building a web application. Students will learn HTML, CSS, Python, and the Django web framework. Taught by Glen Chiacchieri, professional web developer and Artisan's Asylum member.

The class had 9 students and met twice a week for 2 hours each. Generally, I would lecture for the first hour and supervise hands-on learning for the second.

The class materials for the class can be downloaded here.

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One interesting tool I developed for the class was a live-coding interface. To demonstrate Python code, I would type examples out in iPython Notebooks on a projected screen. I could then save the notebooks and distribute them to students later—they looked like this. However, students told me that it was hard to keep up on their own computers with what I was typing on the projected screen. To solve this problem, I wrote a small Python script that uploaded the read-only HTML version of the iPython notebook to a website as I typed. The students could visit the website and copy the code I had just typed on screen and play with it during the class as well as in their own time.