Teach me the Web: Articles and Interviews

Guest Speaker Reaction: Nick Whitmoyer

2009-04-27T14:53:01-05:00

What exactly is mobile web design? What defines mobile? A phone? Any phone? Nick Whitmoyer answered these questions and more in his presentation. He discussed what entails mobile design and how it should effect our current and future design process. Why is mobile design important and when you should decide to have a mobile version were also answered. A great intro to the web on portable devices. Thanks Nick. You can find Nick online at http://www.whitmoyer.com. View/Download Nick’s Presentation Note: Materials below are property of Nick Whitmoyer, you should contact him if you are interested in using any part of his presentation. Nick’s Presentation with Audio on slide share Nick Whitmoyer Presentation Compressed Audio

Guest Speaker Reactions: Aarron Walter

2009-04-27T14:40:30-05:00

Aarron Walter is the findability man. Aarron has written what is becoming the findability bible, works at Mailchimp, and is active in Web Education as the WaSP InterAct team lead. This was an Interview style session with questions ranging from his job title and description to his thoughts on findability. What really made this session fun was Aarron’s teaching experience which showed through. He has a knack for speaking to students which I think threw my students off a bit. It was a great experience and glad he took the time to share. You can find Aarron online at http://aarronwalter.com/. Unfortunately, the batteries on my digital recorder ran out after 2 minutes of recording so no audio this time; sorry.

Guest Speaker Reactions: Chris Coyier

2009-04-01T12:48:47-05:00

Chris Coyier is the man behind CSS Tricks and we were lucky enough to have his attention for 45 minutes. Chris chose to discuss money and how you can make it as a web designer/developer. This really epitomizes the reason I bring in guest speakers because this is a topic not in our curriculum but something the students are always interested in hearing about. Students are less interested in business models and more interested in hearing cold hard facts about how much money, exactly, there is to be made. This married perfectly with Chris’ laid back straight forward approach and he answered some of their burning questions. I would suggest that everyone check this out, there is plenty to learn. Thanks Chris. You can find Chris online at http://css-tricks.com/ and http://chriscoyier.net. View/Download Chris’ Presentation Chris Coyier Presentation Compressed Audio

Guest Speaker Reactions: Trevor Davis

2009-03-31T12:48:26-05:00

Trevor Davis is a young man working for the Matrix Group as a front-end developer and writes for his personal site ( http://trevordavis.net ) and can be found on Net Tuts as well. Trevor spoke about the skillset you need to be a great front end developer which is right up our students alley. Most of these students are currently front end developers because they haven’t been exposed to programming long enough to be really great at it but they have a solid foundation in HTML, CSS, and design; so actually, maybe they are more suited for front end design (rather than development). His chat nailed many key aspects of being great at what he does, but more over I was impressed with the over all attitude he was inferring. In many places he spoke about new technologies and best practices and indirectly he kept referring to how you must continue to learn, you are always a student. A great take away for the students, in addition to all the hands on nitty gritty details on being an excellent front end developer. Thanks Trevor, we enjoyed having you. You can find Trevor online at http://trevordavis.net. View/Download Trevor’s Presentation Note: Materials below are property of Trevor Davis, you should contact him if you are interested in using any part of his presentation. Trevor Davis’ Presentation Trevor Davis Presentation Compressed Audio

Guest Speaker Reactions: Chris Avore

2009-03-30T12:47:26-05:00

Chris Avore is a User Experience Designer. He came in to speak about his profession and exactly what it is. It is something that is still pretty fresh and new (as is most of the web professions) so the students enjoyed a presentation from an expert. It really is amazing at how much there is to discuss and review when it comes to User Experience and Chris really knows his stuff. He was even nice enough to offer to help us develop a website for a client. So wait let me get this right, hands on advice from an expert? Yes, please! You can find Chris online at http://www.erova.com. View/Download Chris’s Presentation Note: Materials below are property of Chris Avore, you should contact him if you are interested in using any part of his presentation. Chris Avore’s Presentation Chris Avore Presentation Compressed Audio

Guest Speaker Reactions: Addison Berry

2009-03-29T12:45:34-05:00

Addison Berry works for Lullabot as the Documentation Team Lead for Drupal. I met Addison at Web Directions North this past February where we realized that we only live/work about 25 minutes away from one another. Her name jumped on my guest speaker list immediately. Addison chose to discuss Open Source. What exactly does it mean to be open source, why would you make something open source instead of proprietary, and many other burning questions. If your going to discuss Open Source, why not hear it from a member of one of the largest Open Source projects in the arena. We really lucked out and were excited to host her. Thanks Addison. You can find Addison online at http://rocktreesky.com. Download Addison’s Presentation Addison Berry Presentation Compressed Audio

The WaSP InterAct Curriculum

2009-03-17T13:04:38-05:00

The WaSP Education Task Force, of which I am a member, has been working hard for the past year; very hard. The goal of the WaSP Edu TF is to spread awareness of web standards among educational staff. This is a lofty goal with lots of special circumstances and road blocks but albeit a noble one. We find that one of the major road blocks to getting teachers to teach a standards based curriculum is a lack of resources. Many educators are not familiar with web standards and don't have the time to learn and teach it. This is a hard task, but many teachers are forced to do this in multiple disciplines all the time. But to be honest, at this time there is a fair amount of resources for professionals who wish to learn or adopt web standards, but little to no standards based resources for educators. Learning web standards is one thing, but teaching it another. WaSP Edu TF cites this as a major inhibitor to adoption and chose to act on it. On the cusp of SxSW 2008 the team decided a best practice to moving toward reducing inhibitors for educators would be to develop a standards based curriculum. The curriculum is meant to be a "living" curriculum, meaning that it receives constant updates as specific technologies come and go; which is a great but strenuous concept. That implies constant upkeep; a task we are willing to embrace. The WaSP Education Task Force was created in 2005 to work directly with educational institutions to help raise awareness of Web standards and accessibility among instructors, administrators, and Web development teams. Curriculum is a word with a multitude of definitions; we define it as a set of requirements, competencies, evaluation results, assignments, and resources for each course. In addition, the curriculum was originally aligned as a four year program for a college or university major. The most important feature people should understand is we don't feel this curriculum comes "as is". We don't view this as the way to teach web design and development. We want educators from high schools, community colleges, certificate programs, and four year schools to use what they need. Like a puzzle piece fit it into your scene. Take what you need or take it all; you can use it as the law and change nothing and take what you need and change most of it. Just use it! Without further ado, I give you the WaSP InterAct Curriculum. I recommend reviewing the overall curriculum structure, an individual course, and the integration guide. Peruse, use, and give us your feedback; we've worked hard to tailor this to you, give us feedback to continue that process.

My students are looking for summer internships

2009-03-13T14:03:59-05:00

The 4 year web program at DHS is culminated with the students finding a paid internship of at least 120 hours. This year there are around 19 eligible students for an internship but only a few who must find one this summer in order to graduate in the program. We are putting the word out for Montgomery County, MD, Baltimore, and DC local organizations who are interested in hiring student(s) in the web design and development capacity. What skills do the students have? Everyone is different so I cannot speak for any individual student but I can share with you the topics we cover in class. Topics HTML CSS Designing for the web (wireframing, grids, typography) Javascript PHP CMS Software we use daily Dreamweaver Notepad++ Photoshop Fireworks MS Office Tell me more Can the students work remotely? Students can work remotely but we strongly suggest they work in house, keeping in mind that this is meant to be a learning experience not simply a mechanism for making money. We want you to embrace the student into your team and let them soak up as much as possible. How much do I have to pay them? That is between you and the student to negotiate, while keeping in mind that they are still students and are still learning but at the same time aren't your summer lackey. We are looking for web related work, not writing HTML for 20 min then taking lunch orders and getting lunch for your team for an hour and a half. I think I'm interested, what now? Great, send me an email at mrbrown at teachmetheweb dot org and tell me what you have to offer, give me the full who, what, and when of the position and we'll see if we can line up some interviews.

Guest Speaker Reactions: Patrick Haney

2009-03-10T02:33:36-05:00

Where in the world do you find inspiration? There’s too much information to process and I cannot find a simple solution. Do I look at websites? Do I copy work? If I don’t look at websites where should I look? Patrick Haney has it all sorted out for us. When he needs inspiration he knows where to go and what to do and he was nice enough to share it with us on this past Friday. If you find yourself twiddling your thumbs waiting to become inspired then you need to watch and listen to the files below as they will guide you on some excellent places, ways, and resources to becoming inspired. In lou of my rule of not repeating what these great speakers say in my summary articles, I’m going to stop here. Patrick was also our very first Skype non-interview presentation; he loaded his slides to Flickr then we used the slideshow to follow along. The only downside was he had to verbalize each time we needed to move the slide, but hey, big deal, we had Patrick Haney giving us design advice, I would have jogged to Boston to click his mouse for him if he wanted me to. So a big thank you to Patrick, a sausage that works...wait, not a sausage, not a sausage. You can find Patrick online at http://patrickhaney.com. View/Download Patrick’s Presentation Note: Materials below are property of Patrick Haney, you should contact him if you are interested in using any part of his presentation. Patrick Haney’s Presentation Patrick Haney Presentation Compressed Audio

Guest Speaker Reactions: Cameron Moll

2009-03-10T01:33:54-05:00

Cameron Moll is a web designer living in Utah. Chances are if you work with the web, you have seen his work, heard him speak, or heard of him. Our class was very lucky to have the opportunity to interview him via Skype. For about 45 minutes we got to pick the brain of a famous web designer, asking him about what makes his work so popular to his suggestions for the students’ future. Be sure to listen to the audio. Thank you Cameron for giving of your time so freely. You can find Cameron online at http://www.cameronmoll.com/. Download Cameron’s Presentation Cameron Moll Presentation Compressed Audio