[!] [=title "Introduction to Web Development"] [=nohomelink] [=content-]

Welcome to the homepage for Trailside's Spring 2026 introduction to web development course!

This page is the source-of-truth for the entire course, so keep it bookmarked and check it often. There will be no Google Classroom; any information you need will be here, and announcements will be posted via good old fashioned email.

If you ever have any questions about web development, feel free to email me at plupy44@gmail.com (bonus if you can figure out how I made that clickable...)

Some parts of this course are intended to be self-study - you can always ask me for help about these, of course, but I recommend first checking out W3Schools and Khan Academy, because they have some pretty great resources for web development.

A rolling list of tags we've covered can be found here.

Hotlink images available HERE.

## Grading

This is a graded course! The weights are as follows:

- Homeworks (14 I think - maybe 13?) - 35% total
- Exams (2) - 50% total
- Participation Activities - 15% total (this will be pop quizzes and such)

If you want to know your grades, just email me - I'll also tell you your running grades after each exam.

Note that your grade doesn't matter too much. The real point of grading is so that I know how well you're doing - you shouldn't really assign much personal weight to the grades you get; they won't be on any permanent transcripts or anything.

## Course Schedule

TBD. Will post an announcement when this is worked out.

## Homework

Homework will drop every week on the Wednesday before class, and be due the following Friday. Your homework submissions will be entirely in website form - you'll be emailing me your HTML files.

- Week 1 Homework (short, no submission)
- Week 2 Homework
- Week 3 Homework (due on January 30th)
- Week 4 Homework (due on February 6th)
- No week 5 homework!
- Week 6 Homework (due on February 20th)
- Week 7 spring break
- Week 8 Homework (due on March 13th)
- Week 9 Homework (due on March 13th) - walkthrough available here
- No week 10, 11, 12 homework
- Week 13 Homework

## Lecture notes

I'll be posting these in advance of lectures, so you can review the material before class.

- Week 1: Getting Set Up
- Week 2: Doctypes, The HTML, Head, and Body tags, Metadata, Web Inspector
- Week 3: Github Pages Intro, Internet Safety, Linked Styles
- Week 4: Style, ID and Class, The Div Tag
- Week 6: Backgrounds
- Spring Break
- Week 8: Display, Position, Flexbox 1, Grid 1
- Week 9: Grid 2
- Week 11: Flexbox 2
- Week 12: Fonts
- Week 13: Hover, Transitions

## Generative AI policy

Don't use AI to do your assignments. You're here to learn web development, not to learn AI prompting. I will assign a 0 grade to any assignment that I suspect was written by AI.

## Math Things

For math we briefly mentioned in class but didn't have enough time to cover.

- Markov Chains: Wikipedia for reference, a nice visual guide for first-time learning.
- A Brief Introduction to AI Math on DeadlyBoringMath - my math blog (warning: don't read the old physics notes, they are unhinged).

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