Category: web-education

Personal Reflections

I don’t get no respect, to quote a well-known comedian. Have I made a difference in spite of that?

I’ve been reflecting on the success of my book, which I hoped some colleges would use as an instructional text in basic HTML classes. I’m running with some very big name competition in my effort to gain a foothold in this field. There are highly successful people writing about the same thing I’m writing about–Liz Castro’s HTML book has been a best-seller for years, Eric Meyer has published umpteen books so valuable that he has reached deity status in the area of CSS, Molly Holzschlag has written 30 books on this topic, Lynda Weinman is a whole industry unto herself with books, movies, and CDs that top the charts.

All that makes me one little no-name author with a single book, not so much about a technology, but about how that technology should be taught. As a writer, it feels like being in a bike race with Lance Armstrong.

And yet…and yet.

I see changes in the publications coming out in this field now. New books are moving the chapters teaching the deprecated HTML to the back of the book, instead of teaching it first. New books, in addition to mine, are appearing with both HTML and CSS in the title. Molly released one recently. The CSS Hands on Training book from lynda.com is being written by Eric Meyer. Hopefully, that means no more gawd-awful table structures, font tags mingled with inappropriate CSS, and other "Code View" horrors that were the hallmarks of the Dreamweaver Hands of Training books for quite a while. Liz Castro’s last book, a two chapter masterpiece in Peachpit’s Visual QuickProject series, taught HTML and CSS simultaneously.

Does anyone besides me remember that I was a voice in the wilderness saying that’s the way it ought to be done for a long time before things finally began to change? I don’t think so. I think people have decided that it is so obviously the right way to do things that everyone is doing it now because it is obviously right. Okay, I can accept that. I can live with the idea that I don’t get no respect. It is enough to hold on to the knowledge as a secret satisfaction that I made a small measure of difference in the pedagogy of teaching HTML and CSS. When you are as introverted as I am, secret satisfactions do just fine.

May 1st Reboot 2005 prompts pondering from Zeldman

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report After judging the college student entries in the May 1st Reboot 2005, Zeldman had some interesting comments. The comment I found most powerful is his assertion, “I am not worried about these mostly very talented designers; I am worried about what the schools are teaching them, and even more about what they are not teaching them. If schools can teach graphic design, mathematics, music, medicine, filmmaking and even rocket science, why is it so hard to teach web design as it really practiced?”

Why, indeed.

I have some first-hand observations about what the problem may be. Many people teaching web design classes are actually teaching Fireworks or Photoshop. Necessary skills, but not the best way to make a web site. Many people teaching web design classes have no real-world experience as web designers. Many people teaching web design classes don’t understand accessibility and/or web standards. I’m heaping up lots of condemnation here, so let me add that many people teaching web design are doing a great job and are teaching the skills that will be needed in the real practice of web design.

Colleges are often hamstrung in who they can hire because of regulations and various degrees of accountability. They may have problems trying to hire an experienced web designer instead of asking an existing approved instructor who teaches something related like digital imaging, computer science or visual communication to do the job. They may understand that they don’t have the best person for the job, but are held in regulatory strictures. In other words, they may want to to do a better job, and know how to do a better job, but for various reasons they are unable to do a better job.

No instructor goes into a classroom thinking they want to be inadequate. Perhaps they rely overmuch on a text that is outdated or not up to standards. Sometimes the texts that make life easiest for the instructor are wonderful on the surface, but underneath they are teaching deprecated code, table-based layouts, and offer no assistance with usablility, accessibility, or standards. How does an instructor select a proper text book? (I try to review textbooks every chance I get.) If instructors are looking for attractive completed projects to assign with lots of supporting materials in the way of CDs, slides, quizzes, etc., then they may be heading for a book that is outdated and does not provide real-world examples.

My opinion, as you may know, is that teachers should start with HTML and CSS and create assignments and projects out of that basic knowledge. My opinion does not express a majority opinion at most colleges, however. Who is right? Someone like me or some governmental overseer of colleges and universities? Maybe the two groups should be talking to each other a lot more.

Why colleges should stop teaching Fireworks as a primary web design tool

Here’s a recurring scenario in my life. Someone who took some college classes to learn to make web sites has decided to try to implement CSS and to make their sites accessible. The classes taught them to make web sites by using Fireworks to slice an image and to export the resulting table-based HTML to Dreamweaver. Now this person, who–I admit–does beautiful graphics in Fireworks, comes to me or to some discussion list I participate in and asks for help in making their Fireworks generated HTML work with CSS or fulfill some accessibility need. This question is like asking how to get a tricycle to go from zero to 60 in under 6 seconds—it demonstrates a gap in the basic knowledge of what is involved.

Some college has given this poor person a difficult handicap to overcome. That handicap is the belief that what they are doing is a best practice that will adapt to every requirement. Yes, Fireworks can generate HTML. No, learning to generate HTML with Fireworks is not the best way to learn to make web sites.

In terms of best practice, students should be learning how to structure an HTML document intelligently so that it can be presented with CSS based enhancements (including, perhaps, lovely images created in Fireworks). An intelligently structured HTML document can adapt to every requirement: CSS/accessibility for screen, print, handheld, etc.

A sliced image exported from Fireworks as a table full of empty cells, spacer gifs, images and almost no text is not the web design solution that some college classes lead students to believe it is. Classes should teach HTML, CSS, and then how to apply that knowledge with a tool like Dreamweaver.

Fireworks does have its place: to create graphics. It should be taught as a graphics design tool, not as a web design tool. Students who use Fireworks to create exportable HTML should know how to adapt it in Dreamweaver to make it meet their other requirements.

There are many options available to an instructor who wants to teach students to think in terms of building structure with HTML that will support CSS and accessibility. My own book is written in these terms, and other books I have reviewed here such as Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm are as well.

No Child Left Behind, except with internet-based curricula

WebAIM’s response to the National Education Technology Plan “WebAIM applauds the plan with the exception of one prominent omission. The plan does not mention the critical need for accessible technology for millions of students with disabilities. Because this need is not identified, nor addressed, there are no apparent plans to remedy this ever-increasing digital divide. Perhaps there was a lack of input from the disability, or technology access, community. It appears that these stakeholders were not included in the work of the committee.”

Thinking beyond the visual

Digital Web Magazine – Web Design for All the Senses by Dirk Knemeyer is an interesting article about stimulating the 5 senses in web design. He says, “the real reason the Web and other digital networks and interactions are such a hollow, flat experience is we are not being innovative and creative enough. Happily, this is something that we can easily take control of and change.”

I find this interesting because I recently had an epiphany of my own to the effect that web design is both engaging and interesting because it allows the creator to exercise both the left and right brain simultaneously. You have the analytical experience of writing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc., to stimulate one side of the brain. And you have the visual experience of planning a color scheme, a layout, graphics, etc., to stimulate the other side. This bit of insight came to me after I signed up to take a Photography and Journaling class, which promised to involve my whole brain with both art and words.

One of my past career paths was to write several books about cooperative learning and multiple intelligences as they apply to the writing process. The Write! books were published by Kagan Cooperative Learning, run by cooperative learning/multiple intelligences guru Spencer Kagan. I’m making quite a leap from the five senses to multiple intelligences here, but stay with me. I’m wondering if there is a way to move from the experiencing of a web page with more than one sense into the teaching of the skill and art of making a web page by using more than one or two of the identified intelligences.

To refresh your memory, the multiple intelligences are Linguistic intelligence, Logical-mathematical intelligence, Spatial intelligence, Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence, Musical intelligence, Interpersonal intelligence, Intrapersonal intelligence, and Naturalist intelligence.

I haven’t heard of anyone trying to teach web design in a way that brings all the various intelligences into play. Drop me a line if you know someone who has, or if you have some ideas about how it could be done.