Tips, web design book reviews, resources and observations for teaching and learning web development.
Links to CaptionTube, an interview with educators advocating web standards, canvas element demos.
CaptionTube is the latest from YouTube. This is accessibility technology right in the browser using a time line-based system that looks and feels like a video editor. It is capable of numerous languages.
Web Standards in Education is an interview with Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson from the University of Ulster at Belfast.
Canvas Demos. Demos, tools and tutorials for the HTML canvas element. Go. Subscribe to the feed. Great stuff!
RDFa has a nomenclature problem. They need to rebrand what they are calling things if they want to prevent eyes from glazing over and hearts from sinking with that “Oh, my God, I don’t have time to learn all this,” feeling that they create with their unusual terminology.
What’s all this stuff about “flavors” at the W3C? They are saying the rel=”license” attribute and value added to a link is “flavor?”
Or take a look at this tutorial. It’s a very well done tutorial, but it’s using nomenclature about subjects, predicates and objects.
Subjects and predicates. What?
After we learn all about subjects, predicates and objects, we may realize that we are talking about ELEMENTS WITH ATTRIBUTES AND VALUES! So why not call them elements, attributes, and values? Why throw in nomenclature about triples and predicates and flavors?
Compare that with the tutorials at RDFaWiki, where you see examples without all the distracting terminology.
All you RDFa people are screaming at your computers now. Yes, of course, I’m oversimplifying. So you can brush off the suggestion as too stupid and simple-minded to even consider if you want. That’s OK. I’m just saying that if you call things by familiar names like element, attribute and value, you will grab more people who are willing to spend a little time figuring out what you’re doing. Which might mean that RDFa achieves a better adoption rate.
A fun Twitter app, a good explanation of RDFa and the semantic web, and a simplified checklist to use with WCAG 2.0 specs. More . . .
There’s another fun web app to use with Twitter. It’s called Twitter Grader. It isn’t quite as useful as some of the apps growing up around Twitter, but it’s fun to play with and get your “grade.”
RDFa, Drupal and a Practical Semantic Web at CMS Wire is a terrific piece in clear language that explains what a sematic web is and how RDFa fits into that concept. It also will help RDFa newbies grasp what it’s all about.
WebAIM’s WCAG 2.0 Checklist. WebAIM has simplified and organized the WCAG specs into an easy to use format with simplified explanations of how you can meet the standards. This would make a great handout or required reading assignment to add to your students’ reading lists. It could also be useful as a grading rubric for assignments that are required to be accessible.
The framework is ready for education and ready for teachers. It contains competencies that can be measured. Exam questions for assessing the competencies are provided. Assignments are provided that address the competencies, with grading rubrics to help with evaluation. More . . .
Educators, this one’s for you. The WaSP InterAct Curriculum Framework is now available. The curriculum is for high school, community college and universtity level teaching of Web Design and Development. The focus is on using best practices and web standards to create students trained and capable in the skills most needed by industry.
The eleven completed courses (with more to come) that comprise the initial release are grouped into learning tracks.
The eleven currently available courses are:
If that list does not contain a course you need or currently teach, there are ways to help WaSP develop future courses. First download a PDF of the framework to see the entire range of courses planned. You can help with the courses still in the planning stage in several ways. You can contribute
However, the best way to help with this curriculum is to TEACH WITH IT.
The framework is ready for education and ready for teachers. The courses are modular. That means you can cherry-pick parts and add them into your current classes to see how they work and fit. Or you can choose to take an entire course and use it from start to finish in a semester. Read the Integration Guide to get a comprehensive set of ideas on using the curriculum.
The framework is ready for education and ready for teachers. It contains competencies that can be measured. Exam questions for assessing the competencies are provided. Assignments are provided that address the competencies, with grading rubrics to help with evaluation.
The framework is ready for education and ready for teachers. Books and resources are listed for core assignments, exploration, online assignments, and external reading assignments. Lab and discussion assignments are suggested. Student blogging assignments are provided. Other outstanding curriculum materials such as the Opera Web Standards Curriculum materials are integrated with the InterAct courses.
The WaSP InterAct curriculum emphasizes best practices and web standards. Why? The InterAct site says,
Web standards are technologies that are free to use, and work the same, regardless of device or platform. Provided you build a website using web standards and best practices, it will be usable by anyone, regardless of their location, the device they are surfing the Web with, and any disabilities they may have.
Standards for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and the other languages that make up the fabric of the Web are critical for its continued growth and success.
Give students a strong grounding in web standards based education and they are ready for the demands of industry, better equipped to find a job in a fast-changing environment, and prepared to step into a job without any additional training from an employer. This last point is a big one with industry, because many companies spend large amounts of time and money training college graduates to do the things they should have learned in college.
Look at the testimonials in support of the WaSP InterAct Curriculum Framework. The people with the jobs to offer your students are stepping up and saying, “We want to hire people with the skills they get from this curriculum.”
If you use the materials in the curriculum, let others know. Let the WaSP people know, and offer feedback on the problems and successes you found with the curriculum. It’s a living, changeable framework and your input matters. If you write about your experiences with the curriculum, make sure the WaSP InterAct team knows about it so they can take what you are saying into account.
Let others know who might be interested in teaching with the materials so that the curriculum is adopted in more and more classrooms.
Technorati Tags: WaSP InterAct
InterAct, CSS3, and ETech. More . . .
The Dawn of the Education Era at the Web Standards Project announces—guess what—a new curriculum called InterAct.
CSS3 Panel Slides from SXSW are linked to at molly.com.
ETech Roundup is a recap of talks by Tim O’Reilly, Mary Lou Jepsen, Andrea Vaccari, and Mark Frauenfelder.
A review of Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML and CSS by Ian Lloyd is from Sitepoint (2008). More . . .
(Amazon affiliate link)★★★★★ Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML and CSS by Ian Lloyd is from Sitepoint (2008). This is the 2nd edition. The first edition was on my recommended list for a very long time, and I don’t see any reason to remove the second edition from that recommended list.
The book covers the basics of getting started, tools you need, and gives plenty of examples of code for both the HTML and CSS it suggests. You build a single site to completion by the end of the book with a customized Blogger blog added. The book is a foundational experience that emphasizes best practices and would get anyone off to a solid start. The last chapter deals with where to go next, what else to learn, and where to find more references.
When tools are involved, such as FTP tools, the book includes examples for both Windows and Mac. It’s well written and illustrated. In short, a very good book
Summary: Clear explanation of the basics using best practices.
Technorati Tags: Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way, book reviews
Useful links: When can I use new features of web standards? The John Slatin Access U for 2009. Do It Myself Blog’s Glenda figures out how to present live online. More . . .
When can I use . . . has compatibility tables for features in HTML5, CSS3, SVG and other upcoming web technologies. It shows a timeline for when various features will be supported. No surprise, many are waiting for the demise of some version or other of Internet Explorer.
An event to note. For two days in May, Knowbility will be putting on the newly named John Slatin Access U. It will be at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. It features a Usability Track and a Molly Holzschlag Track. There’s a post conference day with Molly and Derek Featherstone. Read the course descriptions.
You know Molly’s a brand of her own when there’s a whole section of an event named “Molly Holzschlag Track.” There’s not even a need to explain what it will be about, you only need to mention her name. There’s an interview or a graduate thesis or a book in there somewhere about how Molly became a brand.
Celebrating a Newly Discovered Ability from Do It Myself Blog is Glenda Watson Hyatt’s presentation from AccessCamp San Antonio. It explains how she managed to do a live online presentation and is a must see presentation.