Over the course of the semester you will develop a significant website as a project for this class. You may build this website as an individual or in a team of two. (Larger teams are not permitted.) This project will have several milestones that you must meet.
As the first step in this project you are required to submit a project proposal. This proposal should describe the website that you intend to build. I encourage you to explore the possibility of building an actual website for an organization or a team or a cause with which you are familiar. It is also acceptable for you to build a site for a ficticious entity or just to build yourself a really cool personal website, but it would be better to build a site that is of some service to the community.
When you are considering possible themes for your site, you should be aware of the milestones that you will be expected to meet during the semester. The first milestone will involve static webpages built using just HTML5 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Much of the primary content of your site will probably be in this form. The second milestone will require you to use PHP to add dynamics to your site. Most likely this will involve generating and responding to forms filled in by the user. The third milestone will add scripts written in the Javascript language to enhance the dynamic aspects of your site. Examples of possible enhancements include changing aspects of the document as the mouse moves over items, allowing the user to move elements around the display and changing the content of documents dynamically, perhaps using AJAX technology. Finally the fourth milestone will involve extending your PHP and adding a MySQL database to further enhance your sites ability to interact dynamically with users.
Your project proposal is due by Wednesday, September 6. You should submit (using the Assignment Submission page) a simple HTML5 document that describes your proposed website. (Note that this is the only assignment all semester long where I will not worry about whether your HTML is valid. A simple document with a few paragraphs will be fine.) At this point I'm not looking for a complete design. I expect your ideas will evolve during the semester and that is okay. You should make an effort to find a topic that has enough richness to lend itself to the milestones mentioned above. If you have any doubts or questions, please come talk to me or send me email.
One concern that I want to be clear about from the beginning is that there may be conflicts between what an organization would like in its website and what you will be required to do for this class. For the purposes of this class you will need to incorporate the kind of technologies that we are studying and, for the most part, not incorporate technologies that we are not studying. When the semester is over, you can do whatever you like with the website that you build.