Teach me the Web: Articles and Interviews

Field Trip to Viget Labs

2010-01-15T20:09:00+00:00

Leading up to

Damascus High School is conveniently located in Damascus, Maryland along the outer rim of Montgomery County. It is nestled roughly between Baltimore and Washington DC with a 45 minute to hour ride to either. This offers the students a great opportunity to connect with the movers and shakers of the web design community working in these two cities. Viget Labs is one company in particular that has a strong reputation and has been eager to connect with my students. With a remarkable and understanding benefits package that includes two paid community service days, Viget continues to send DHS their best and brightest to speak as part of our guest lecture program. Without their amazing support and others the program wouldn’t be what it is.

This Fall I sent a note to Brian Williams (CEO & Co-founder of Viget) proposing an Advanced Web Tools class field trip to Viget. The next day I got a note that said, "Sure, sounds fun. Let’s do it.". I share this because it demonstrates Viget’s desire to better their community.

The Field Trip

On Thursday, December 10^th, 2009 my class of around 30 Advanced Web Tools students took an hour metro ride and 25 minute walk in the crisp Winter air to visit Viget in Falls Church, Virginia.

From the start we were impressed. Brian greeted us outside the office with a warm welcome and split us down the middle with simultaneous guided tours. We got to see the facility and hear from most members. The tour revealed an open office with comfortable cubbies. We briefly visited each facet of Viget Labs from HR to Design to Front End to Developers and more and got to hear from the team members.

Next some designers and developers spoke briefly about what it means to fall in their respective regions, things to look at, how to get into it, and possible education. It was a great time for the kids to ask job specific questions.

We ended the day with a hands on strategy development session. Jackson Wilkinson and Brian Talbot lead small teams of students in the development of a web application near and dear to us, a school field trip web application that streamlined the process and made it easy for all parties. Markers and whiteboards were flying with rich conversation and over the shoulder remarks from Jackson and Brian.

We ended the day with pizza (supplied by Viget).

Picture taken by Brian Williams

As we parted we gathered to thank Brian and his team for their hospitality by presenting them with the Progressive Enhancement Plaque. Our program bestows this award to any persons who give of themselves in a manner which enhances web education. We feel Viget meets and exceeds this requirement.

In Reflection

On the way home I witnessed a group of chatty and tired high school students revel in their inspiration. They were excited to see that what they are learning in class is a respected craft and the course content is legit. You always wonder if the kids "get it", like how lucky they are to have had this opportunity; I think they did this time. Before we left in the morning I told them I can guarentee no other 15, 16, and 17 year olds will ever enter Viget Labs with a free pass to explore and soak up knowledge so to be on their best behavior and take advantage of the opportunity.

I’m proud of my students, Viget Labs, and our program. I now have 30 students who aspire to work at Viget one day.

See what Viget thought of the experience.

The Guest Lecture Podcast Launch

2009-11-09T19:40:47+00:00

As a teacher of Web Design and Development at the high school level, I have been bringing in guest speakers for about 3 years now. It wasn’t until last year that I decided to base my curriculum around bringing in a speaker every Friday. If I can’t bring my students to the web design conferences, I’m going to bring the professionals to them. After all, it is these young people that need to hear what you have to say about this field.

I know there’s many students, teachers, classrooms, and adults that could also benefit from hearing these presentations as well. For this reason from day one, I knew I should be recording these so I invested in a high quality digital recorder. It worked well, and I always meant to start a podcast with them but I never did. In lou of that, I wrote a brief reflection on the guest speaker and offered the audio for download. But I wanted more.

There was a guest speaker who came in one day when I was out, our process was so automated that it really wasn’t an issue, students set up and recorded the presentation. I listened to the audio to catch up and felt like I was in a black box listening to something fun and exciting just around the corner. Despite being helpful I felt it really lacked the personality that actually being here gave. In addition, at Damascus HS we have an awesome video productions department. I talked to them and we worked out a system: on Friday they drop off a high end digital camera, I hit record, after our speaker they come by and pick it up, and about a week later they deliver a chopped version of the presentation.

With all of this in mind, I decided that since I didn’t have to worry about optimizing and chopping up the video (thanks Alex Sauter and Mr. Swiger) that I would spend that extra time developing a video podcast. With most of the kinks worked out I am happy to share the fruits of our labor. I will continue to update these throughout the year so subscribe via iTunes.

The Launch

I am happy to officially announce the launch of the Teach me the Web Guest Lecture Podcast. You may also notice the link in the top right of the main navigation has changed to podcast. In addition, the blog archive page (accessible via the blog link in the main navigation) has changed to include and specify articles, interview, and podcasts.

Why a podcast?

It is really pretty amazing how many people (adults especially) have mentioned to me that they wish they could be in my class. I think I’m a pretty good teacher but I could count on one hand how many people said that before I developed this guest speaker program. I realize it has value and I want people to learn and grow from it. Plus I think it’s a great resource for young people to build skills through. In addition to simply teaching web design, I work to enhance and update web education. It is an educational arena that really hasn’t caught up to the current industry standards yet. I’m hoping that this podcast series will help other educators in all venues who teach web design and development. A video podcast is portable, accessible, and convenient. I’m hoping you can make use of it.

2009 - 2010 Guest Speaker Line Up

2009-10-14T18:31:56+00:00

At Damascus High School I teach a Advanced Web Tools and Digital Media course to my second year web design students. In this course we discuss both development and design at a high school pace (crazy, right?). About 4 years ago I reached out to the Refresh DC community soliciting for guest speakers. Nclud and Jackson Wilkinson stepped up to the plate. Since that year this guest speaker program has exploded into what it is today: Prestigous Web Professionals connecting with high school students. In each guest lecture the topics are as varied as the speakers and by doing this I am hoping to expose my students to as much as I can about the web profession. In a perfect world all my students would go on to be great web designers and developers, however, if they simply become an informed users I can live with that. And no, they don't realize how lucky they are to have these highly qualified professionals speak to them.

So this is this years' guest speaker line up (all microformatted up for your SEO enjoyment). If you see an open slot and you're interested in speaking that day please contact me.

We are lucky again to host such a wide variety of talented web professionals.

Friday, September 25^th, 2009 Jackson Wilkinson, Strategist at Viget Labs

Friday, October 9^th, 2009 John F. Croston, Web Content Accessibility Manager for The US Army

Thursday, October 15^th, 2009 Jason Leveille, Web Developer at Blue Atlas Interactive

Friday, October 30^th, 2009 Nicholas Tolson, Web Strategist

Friday, November 6^th, 2009 Jared Smith, Associate Director of WebAIM

Friday, November 13^th, 2009 The Entire Nclud Team, Web Design Agency

Monday, November 16^th, 2009 Dan Philibin and Michael Castilla, Students / Entrepreneurs of WPCandy

Friday, November 20^th, 2009 Jim Webb, Associate Director of Web Design at Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University

Friday, November 27^th, 2009 Owen Shifflett, Web Designer at Viget Labs

Friday, December 4^th, 2009 Chris Coyier, Web Designer / Blogger at CSS Tricks

Thursday, December 10^th, 2009 Field Trip to Viget Labs in Falls Church, Virginia

Friday, December 11^th, 2009 Jacob Cass, Designer / Blogger at Just Creative Design

Friday, December 18^th, 2009 Chris Mills, Evangelist at Opera

Friday, January 15^th, 2010 Anton Peck, Web Designer / Illustrator Freelancer

Friday, January 22^nd, 2010 Matthew Smith, Principal / Creative Director / Designer at Squared Eye

Friday, January 29^th, 2009 Dan Mall, Senior Designer at Big Spaceship

Friday, February 5^th, 2010 Jason Leveille, Web Developer at Blue Atlas Interactive

Friday, February 12^th, 2010 Jason Garber, User Interface Architect at Mixx

Friday, February 19^th, 2010 Dan Rubin, Founder of Web Graph

Friday, March 5^th, 2010 Anna Debenham, Freelance Front End Developer

Friday, March 19^th, 2010 Discovery Creative Digital Team Interactive Team for Discovery Creative

Friday, April 9^th, 2010 Jonathan Snook, Web Developer at Squarespace

Friday, April 16^th, 2009 Doug Schepers, Browser Standards Specialist at The World Wide Web Consortium

Friday, April 23^rd, 2010 Jina Bolton, Interaction Designer at Crush + Lovely

Friday, April 30^th, 2010 Tom Osborne, Design Director at Viget Labs

Friday, May 7^th, 2009 Samantha Warren, Senior Designer at Phase 2 Technology

Friday, May 14^th, 2010 Open Interested? Contact me: mrbrown at teachmetheweb dot org

Friday, May 21^st, 2010 Open Interested? Contact me: mrbrown at teachmetheweb dot org

Friday, May 28^th, 2010 Open Interested? Contact me: mrbrown at teachmetheweb dot org

There are several others whom I am waiting to finalize dates with but this year I'm not going to list them below here. You get on the list after we confirm a date for you.

This is shaping up to be another exciting year of guest speakers and fun. If you see that I've made a mistake (and I'm sure I did while putting this all into hCalendar microformat) then please let me know and I'll fix it. Thanks.

Im still alive

2009-10-01T13:55:12+00:00

As the person responsible for maintaining this site and contributing to this blog I'm embarrassed. I don't want to make excuses because I hate it when my students make excuses with me. However, I think explaining some things going on in my life right now will help you understand why Teachmetheweb has been neglected. By explaining and itemizing it I'm also hoping to alleviate some of the stress I've been feeling lately. This is why I've been absent.

Our new daughter

On May 11, 2009 my daughter entered this world. It was an emotional and exciting time which my wife and I look back upon fondly. She is now 4 and a half months old and sharing twists and turns in life each and every day. She consumes much of our time now. No more days staying late at school grading or working on web projects when I have to be somewhere to pick her up. Although, I wouldn't trade it for the world, she's amazing.

Summer work

For the past two summers I have worked full time in the summer for a small web development firm called Blue Atlas Interactive based in Germantown, MD. I think officially my title is Junior Developer but I really run the gambit of all the jobs which I love. I get bored easily with work and its nice to have a fast-paced ever-changing environment. This past summer I primarily did front-end dev which is my most favoritest thing to do so it was enjoyable. Towards the end of the summer I always get itchy to get back in the classroom and interacting with students, not to mention sitting at a desk all day is nearly impossible for me.

The We Rock Tour

This summer began what I hope is a permanent fixture in Web Education. The Web Education (WE) Rocks Tour was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee this past early August organized by Leslie Jensen-Inman. My wife and I drove there (about 8 hours one way) with our new daughter. The WE Rock Tour was a week of passionate web professionals and educators coming together to work on web education. The current work focus was furthering development of The Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA), a current W3C Incubator Group whose primary goal is to enhance the web design and development opportunities available in education to students world-wide. For example, where are the web design and development majors in Universities and Colleges? This field which has changed the world in a way like no other technology has can't be studied as a 4 year program? Are you serious? We (see the WE ROCK team) are working to combat these issues.

As a thank you to the Chattanooga community Leslie organized a public presentation from some group members about web ed. I was lucky enough to be asked to present and had to summarize my presentation into 5 quick minutes. It went really well and when the video becomes available I'll certainly link to it.

My Masters' Program

In the Fall of 2004 I started a Masters' Degree at Hood College in Educational Leadership which prepares me to be an Assistant Principal and Principal. Is that the path I want to follow in life, I don't know, but it makes sense to get a degree that allows me to move up the food chain. I never know why people get Masters' to make meager increases in salary and no opportunity for advancement.

After 5 years of slowly taking classes here and there and a year off to finish up my certification I am at the final stags of my degree. Lucky me, the program culminates with a year long internship as an in school administrator. So in addition to my regular teaching schedule and responsibilities I have to shadow and work as an administrator in my planning time. By the end of the year I have to log 280 hours of working intern experience. In addition, the interns meet once a month and at each session must turn in 2 projects. This is consuming so much of my professional day that I have little time to do anything aside from teach.

I started teaching Web Design (surprise, surprise) adjunct at Montgomery College this past Spring and am really into continuing that but I just don't have the time mainly because of the internship and had to turn it down this year. Cannot wait to get back into it though.

A New Home

And finally my wife and I are moving into a townhouse (upgrading from a condominium). This will allow us to spread our feet a bit and give us some much needed space to cultivate our family. This is a temporary move but should sustain us for a few more years. We desire the picket fence and yard in a single family dwelling like all young couples. The townhouse was in good condition but could use some upgrades like paint, carpet, and hardwood flooring. To save a buck I'm doing all but the carpet myself (that carpet would be jacked up if I did it). My parents have been helping with the hard labor and we're almost done and should be able to move in soon. So each night after work I go work for 3 to 5 hours at the townhouse. I'm lucky the townhouse is only a few miles from our current home.

In Summary

Having a blog is like having a dog, with it comes responsibility and an unspoken oath to care for it. I've been a bad owner as of late. I will be updating this with plenty more this year including articles, interviews, and assignments. Our guest speakers have already kicked off this past Friday and I can't wait to tell you more about it. So there's no lack of content, just a lack of my availability. I hope this helps you understand that I have not lost my passion or my interest in this content. Hoping you see more of me soon.

Guest Speaker Reaction: Nick Whitmoyer

2009-04-27T14:53:23+00:00

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.

Guest Speaker Reactions: Aarron Walter

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

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+00:00

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+00:00

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.

Guest Speaker Reactions: Chris Avore

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

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.

Guest Speaker Reactions: Addison Berry

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

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.

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Addison Berry Presentation Compressed Audio