Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Christian Montoya]

On 2/16/06, James Gollan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> It would be great, however, if there was a course that started taking
> responsibility for the different aspect of web design in a far more
> holistic way right from the begiinning.

I think in terms of four year or two year programs, especially in
things like information science, web development, etc, the one thing
that is overlooked the most is CSS. Even for graphic designers, this
is a shame, since just a few minutes of browsing the CSS Zen Garden
shows how much graphic designers can do with even a basic knowledge of
CSS (and it can't be done so elegantly with tables... sometimes not at
all).

I think the day I see programs with a full semester dedicated to CSS,
I can celebrate. Even a semester of CS130 at Cornell, covering 1/3 CSS
(the rest XHTML and basic PHP) is not enough to teach decent
layout/positioning skills... and I'm saying this because I've seen
other students struggle with it.

Next fall I'll most likely get to be a Teaching Assistant for the
course, so I'll get an even better idea of just how much time and
material students need to really learn CSS.

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[James Gollan]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I've been following this discussion with great interest.

I've taught HTML, CSS and JavaScript at a TAFE, but not as part of a 
coding course, as part of a graphic design course. That's an 
interesting environment in which to think about standards -- the 
students were totally focused on design and graphics, and were really 
learning three applications: Photoshop, FireWorks and DreamWeaver, 
rather than what web pages were all about.
I actually think that is a sign of the educational institutions being 
slow to catch up in their approach to web design. From what I can tell 
it currently seems to be considered either:


   * an add-on to a graphic design course, in the form of 'and you can
 turn your print/marketing campaign into a web site/online
 marketing campaign'.
   * as a part of programming and applicatoin development.

Again, anecdotally, either scenario seems to prioritise one aspect of 
the process whilst downplaying or ignoring the importance of the other. 
It would seem that eventually a crossover course is needed, perhaps in 
the form of some type of 'design or development major' . Design students 
interested in the web should receive the relevant knowledge to work in 
that environment right from the beginning. Equally developers should we 
well versed in aspects of usability and interface design, particularly 
when learning their client side technologies.


At the moment in Ultimo we have the balance of 9 hours/week multimedia 
and design, 9 hours per week scripting, HTML, CSS and XML, and 1 1/2 
hours usability and accessibility. It's a fairly  good balance but there 
is so much to get through in 6 months. Once they leave the Cert IV they 
don't cover any aspects of client side web design again - the next year 
is all .NET development (no PHP unfortunately ;(  )


I have sat in course implementation workshops where interface design has 
been dismissed as drawing pretty pictures, and then HTML and CSS has 
been downplayed to "learning a few tags - 6 or 8 hours tops" (by the 
same person, no less!)


I am not suggesting that we produce a "jack of all trades", but I feel 
the education must start out in a much more generalised way.


On a positive note, I have noticed a steady stream of designers 
enrolling in the course to learn how to work for web. Most come in with 
some Dreamweaver experience and the notion that they will learn advanced 
Dreamweaver. For some of them 12 weeks of css and html in notepad is too 
much, but most of them embrace the idea of learning theories of 
usability, accessibility and end up performing really well.


It would be great, however, if there was a course that started taking 
responsibility for the different aspect of web design in a far more 
holistic way right from the begiinning.

I agree with points others have made:

1) IT staff have an amazing amount of control over what is allowed -- 
to the detriment of the students' learning what happens in the real 
world. Not one of my students had ever FTPd a file to a server so, for 
instance, all their paths had to be relative and they could make 
mistakes with case-sensitivity with impunity.


2) Syllabuses are either out of date, or more likely, so general as to 
be meaningless -- students on my JavaScript course had to learn "a 
scripting language". Students on my HTML course had to learn "a markup 
language". I could have taught them Visual Basic and SGML and been 
entirely within the guidelines.


3) There's no time -- I taught a class of fifteen graphic designers 
the very basics of HTML in a class lasting in total, five hours or so. 
When they said "how do I get two columns in my page?" I taught them to 
do a table. Mea Culpa. I did, of course, explain about table versus 
div positioning, font tags versus CSS, but I didn't attempt to teach 
them two completely different languages in that very short time. If 
they achieved a valid page with an , a couple of s and a 
working link, I was happy. But I can't say I advanced the cause of 
standards much...


   "Have You Validated Your Code?"
John Horner(+612 / 02) 8333 3594
Developer, ABC Kids Onlinehttp://www.abc.net.au/

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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[john]

Title: Re: [WSG] Web design education


How long ago was this per chance?

Just last year.

In essense, higher/further education guidelines (IT/Graphic
Design or otherwise) don't seem to be able to bridge the gap between
basic 'HTML know-how' and 'Web Standards-friendly' web design
techniques.

To be honest, the "HTML know-how" part is a quick
glimpse of code because that's a formal requirement of the course.
Given the choice I think both students and staff might gladly skip it
altogether in favour of more time with Photoshop.

The real issue is that the course is, from the point of view of
the people on this list, back to front. A website should not be
something which starts out as an attractive graphic and is then
wrestled into HTML-table/GIF/JPEG format so that it can be put on the
web.

But that's the way it's taught, in the same way that students in
other modules are taught to create work, then turn their work into
other output formats, wrestling with the details of different colour
systems, inks and papers.


   "Have You Validated Your
Code?"  
John
Horner    (+612 / 02) 8333
3594   

Developer, ABC Kids
Online   
http://www.abc.net.au/

Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Matt Robin]

Hi John,How long ago was this per chance?I find your comments very interesting because it's taken right from direct experience in formal web education (albeit to graphic designers at the time).In essense, higher/further education guidelines (IT/Graphic Design or otherwise) don't seem to be able to bridge the gap between basic 'HTML know-how' and 'Web Standards-friendly' web design techniques. This is an extremely important foundation for shaping a web design community that is more web-standards aware...and it's an epic task to try and overhaul this in one country - yet alone the world at large (!)
I greatly appreciate insights from educators (or former educators) such as yourself - because it gives other web design professionals a greater sense of what the educational establishments are teaching to the next generation of potential web professionals.
Regards,Matt---http://www.mattrobin.comOn 16/02/06, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've been following this discussion with great interest.I've taught HTML, CSS and _javascript_ at a TAFE, but not as part of acoding course, as part of a graphic design course. That's aninteresting environment in which to think about standards -- the
students were totally focused on design and graphics, and were reallylearning three applications: Photoshop, FireWorks and DreamWeaver,rather than what web pages were all about. A brief excursion intosource code left them for the most part baffled, if not horrified.
Why would anybody do it that way when we have Dreamweaver?I agree with points others have made:1) IT staff have an amazing amount of control over what is allowed --to the detriment of the students' learning what happens in the real
world. Not one of my students had ever FTPd a file to a server so,for instance, all their paths had to be relative and they could makemistakes with case-sensitivity with impunity.2) Syllabuses are either out of date, or more likely, so general as
to be meaningless -- students on my _javascript_ course had to learn "ascripting language". Students on my HTML course had to learn "amarkup language". I could have taught them Visual Basic and SGML and
been entirely within the guidelines.3) There's no time -- I taught a class of fifteen graphic designersthe very basics of HTML in a class lasting in total, five hours orso. When they said "how do I get two columns in my page?" I taught
them to do a table. Mea Culpa. I did, of course, explain about tableversus div positioning, font tags versus CSS, but I didn't attempt toteach them two completely different languages in that very shorttime. If they achieved a valid page with an , a couple of s
and a working link, I was happy. But I can't say I advanced the causeof standards much..."Have You Validated Your Code?"
John Horner(+612 / 02) 8333 3594Developer, ABC Kids Onlinehttp://www.abc.net.au/
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[john]

I've been following this discussion with great interest.

I've taught HTML, CSS and JavaScript at a TAFE, but not as part of a 
coding course, as part of a graphic design course. That's an 
interesting environment in which to think about standards -- the 
students were totally focused on design and graphics, and were really 
learning three applications: Photoshop, FireWorks and DreamWeaver, 
rather than what web pages were all about. A brief excursion into 
source code left them for the most part baffled, if not horrified. 
Why would anybody do it that way when we have Dreamweaver?


I agree with points others have made:

1) IT staff have an amazing amount of control over what is allowed -- 
to the detriment of the students' learning what happens in the real 
world. Not one of my students had ever FTPd a file to a server so, 
for instance, all their paths had to be relative and they could make 
mistakes with case-sensitivity with impunity.


2) Syllabuses are either out of date, or more likely, so general as 
to be meaningless -- students on my JavaScript course had to learn "a 
scripting language". Students on my HTML course had to learn "a 
markup language". I could have taught them Visual Basic and SGML and 
been entirely within the guidelines.


3) There's no time -- I taught a class of fifteen graphic designers 
the very basics of HTML in a class lasting in total, five hours or 
so. When they said "how do I get two columns in my page?" I taught 
them to do a table. Mea Culpa. I did, of course, explain about table 
versus div positioning, font tags versus CSS, but I didn't attempt to 
teach them two completely different languages in that very short 
time. If they achieved a valid page with an , a couple of s 
and a working link, I was happy. But I can't say I advanced the cause 
of standards much...


   "Have You Validated Your Code?"
John Horner(+612 / 02) 8333 3594
Developer, ABC Kids Onlinehttp://www.abc.net.au/

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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Steve Olive]

Hi all,

First post - I teach IT and support half of the computer network for  
the Arts & IT section at Bathurst TAFE. We teach Web Design (as well  
as other courses like Digital Media and Client Support) and for the  
last five years have pushed for students to not only design using  
XHTML and CSS but to have assessments meet the standards for the  
different WAI levels. With pressure from teachers and the Head  
Teacher students have access to Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla,  
Opera and Lynx. The last three years have seen hosting on LAMP  
servers so students are required to learn PHP and MySQL.


The modules are the same as those used by all the other TAFE Campuses  
but our teachers are determined to produce students who know the  
standards and can design effective, artistic and meet the standards.  
We have been blocked by the IT Network support staff at higher levels  
but with pressure from staff and students the required applications  
have been installed because it is the teaching that is important.


Keep up the pressure about standards compliance - it is important and  
will save businesses large sums of money (just ask Target USA).


Regards,

Steve

On 14/02/2006, at 10:28 PM, Ric Raftis wrote:

Your comments reminded me that I had neglected to mention something  
else regarding my TAFE experiences.  Perhaps I should mention that  
I am 50 years of age and attended as a mature age student and not  
someone out of high school, however despite all amounts of  
agitating and lobbying, the Bendigo TAFE refused to provide access  
to Firefox or Opera or any other browser apart from IE.  That was  
the only browser that you could use to access the outside world.   
You couldn't install or run your own versions locally, so  
consequently Firefox and the Web Developer Extension were not  
available to test your sites or ensure that code was valid.


Maybe this will change in the future, but it has to come from the  
top.  The thing that I found most amazing was that the IT people in  
charge of the networks had the say over the people delivering the  
courses.  It was actually the network administrators that stymied  
the efforts of the lecturers by denying access to better browsers  
and tools.  You would have thought that IT professionals would be  
far more aware of the benefits of using compliant browsers and be  
implementing these in our educational institutions.


Regards,

Ric

Michael Nelson wrote:


Ric Raftis wrote:

It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that
TAFEs across the country may vary widely despite courses
supposedly being drawn from a national based syllabus and
providing national accreditation.

Related to this, I reckon one of the biggest problems causing a  
lack of standards in Web design education is a lack of  
collaboration. Each facilitator/lecturor is re-inventing the wheel  
with activities and resources largely due to IP restrictions  
within their workplace. In reality, many facilitators just end up  
re-using the same resources that's been used for the last 5 years  
because on their own they don't have time to update both their own  
skills and the resources they use.


The ironic thing is that (nearly) all the best info on Web Design  
topics is being shared freely by professional designers on their  
blogs/sites! ... I mean, with excellent sites like http:// 
webdesignfromscratch.com/ and http://maxdesign.com.au/ published  
by professionals, what is the role of an educator?


My take is that if lecturors and facilitators were able to  
collaboratively create and update flexible learning pathways from  
all the great free stuff out there, we'd be in a better position  
to help the uptake of standards in Web design education.


(Plug) : 'cause of this, I've started setting up a WebDesign  
Wikibook over at:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Web_Design 
 Really it's just ordering and grouping all the great resources  
out there created by you professionals into some sort of learning  
pathway with ideas for activities... Feel free to contribute :)


--
Michael Nelson
http://liveandletlearn.net/



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RE: [WSG] Web design education

[Chris Taylor]

Wow, I seem to have kicked off quite a ruckus. From what has been said I
believe the situation isn't as bad as I thought, certainly no worse than
in business/industry. There is still a long way to go, but we're getting
there.

So, points to note:

1) Syllabus documents may be out of date, or just not quite in line with
what's actually being taught. Lesson: don't believe everything you read,
and believe the best until proven otherwise.

2) Some educators are resistant to change, just as some finance
directors/marketing departments/project managers are. Lesson: You can
lead a horse to water...

3) Many academic institutions are teaching and advocating web standards
to their students. Lesson: use the people doing it right as examples,
maybe a "how web standards has improved our web design course" document
would be useful.

And some things that I've been mulling over for quite a while. Is there
an international web design accreditation scheme, or some "web master
driving licence"? Is that one of the aims of a web designers
association/guild? And finally, what associations/guilds are you part
of? http://www.hwg.org/, http://www.gawds.org/, http://www.iwanet.org/,
and http://www.ukwda.org/ are the ones I'm aware of (there are others,
I'm sure).

thanks

Chris
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Ric Raftis]

Your comments reminded me that I had neglected to mention something else 
regarding my TAFE experiences.  Perhaps I should mention that I am 50 
years of age and attended as a mature age student and not someone out of 
high school, however despite all amounts of agitating and lobbying, the 
Bendigo TAFE refused to provide access to Firefox or Opera or any other 
browser apart from IE.  That was the only browser that you could use to 
access the outside world.  You couldn't install or run your own versions 
locally, so consequently Firefox and the Web Developer Extension were 
not available to test your sites or ensure that code was valid.


Maybe this will change in the future, but it has to come from the top.  
The thing that I found most amazing was that the IT people in charge of 
the networks had the say over the people delivering the courses.  It was 
actually the network administrators that stymied the efforts of the 
lecturers by denying access to better browsers and tools.  You would 
have thought that IT professionals would be far more aware of the 
benefits of using compliant browsers and be implementing these in our 
educational institutions.


Regards,

Ric

Michael Nelson wrote:


Ric Raftis wrote:

It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that
TAFEs across the country may vary widely despite courses
supposedly being drawn from a national based syllabus and
providing national accreditation. 



Related to this, I reckon one of the biggest problems causing a lack 
of standards in Web design education is a lack of collaboration. Each 
facilitator/lecturor is re-inventing the wheel with activities and 
resources largely due to IP restrictions within their workplace. In 
reality, many facilitators just end up re-using the same resources 
that's been used for the last 5 years because on their own they don't 
have time to update both their own skills and the resources they use.


The ironic thing is that (nearly) all the best info on Web Design 
topics is being shared freely by professional designers on their 
blogs/sites! ... I mean, with excellent sites like 
http://webdesignfromscratch.com/ and http://maxdesign.com.au/ 
published by professionals, what is the role of an educator?


My take is that if lecturors and facilitators were able to 
collaboratively create and update flexible learning pathways from all 
the great free stuff out there, we'd be in a better position to help 
the uptake of standards in Web design education.


(Plug) : 'cause of this, I've started setting up a WebDesign Wikibook 
over at:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Web_Design 

 
Really it's just ordering and grouping all the great resources out 
there created by you professionals into some sort of learning pathway 
with ideas for activities... Feel free to contribute :)


--
Michael Nelson
http://liveandletlearn.net/ 



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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Michael Nelson]

Ric Raftis wrote:It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that TAFEs 
across the country may vary widely despite courses supposedly being 
drawn from a national based syllabus and providing national 
accreditation.
Related to this, I reckon one of the biggest problems causing a lack of standards in Web design education is a lack of collaboration. Each facilitator/lecturor is re-inventing the wheel with activities and resources largely due to IP restrictions within their workplace. In reality, many facilitators just end up re-using the same resources that's been used for the last 5 years because on their own they don't have time to update both their own skills and the resources they use.
The ironic thing is that (nearly) all the best info on Web Design topics is being shared freely by professional designers on their blogs/sites! ... I mean, with excellent sites like 

http://webdesignfromscratch.com/ and http://maxdesign.com.au/ published by professionals, what is the role of an educator?
My take is that if lecturors and facilitators were able to collaboratively create and update flexible learning pathways from all the great free stuff out there, we'd be in a better position to help the uptake of standards in Web design education.
(Plug) : 'cause of this, I've started setting up a WebDesign Wikibook over at: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Web_Design
 Really it's just ordering and grouping all the great resources out there created by you professionals into some sort of learning pathway with ideas for activities... Feel free to contribute :)
-- Michael Nelsonhttp://liveandletlearn.net/

RE: Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[Herrod, Lisa]

Man you guys are tough! I've only had 3 hours sleep!

I was just trying to not flood the list with personal emails! Thanks for the
kind words James, as always, you know I'd love to come back into TAFE to
rally the troops!

> -Original Message-
> From: James Gollan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, 14 February 2006 11:09 AM
> To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
> Subject: Re: Recall: [WSG] Web design education
> 
> 
> Mark Harris wrote:
> > Terrence Wood wrote:
> >> Herrod, Lisa wrote:
> >>> Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web design 
> >>> education".
> >> What does that mean and where does it come from? Someone 
> else sent me 
> >> one of those recently.
> >>
> >>
> > Generally, it means someone is using Outlook on an 
> MS-Exchange server 
> > as their mail set up. Exchange allows you to recall 
> messages on your 
> > local server if the recipient hasn't opened it yet. It doesn't work 
> > outside your local environment though.
> Of course it has a secondary effect of causing great interest in the 
> offending email, subjecting it to a level of scrutiny that it would 
> otherwise not enjoy!
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> 
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Re: Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[James Gollan]

Mark Harris wrote:

Terrence Wood wrote:

Herrod, Lisa wrote:
Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web design 
education".
What does that mean and where does it come from? Someone else sent me 
one of those recently.



Generally, it means someone is using Outlook on an MS-Exchange server 
as their mail set up. Exchange allows you to recall messages on your 
local server if the recipient hasn't opened it yet. It doesn't work 
outside your local environment though.
Of course it has a secondary effect of causing great interest in the 
offending email, subjecting it to a level of scrutiny that it would 
otherwise not enjoy!

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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[James Gollan]

Ric Raftis wrote:

James Gollan wrote:

I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions 
are still teaching table based design. As an educator I feel I am in 
a great position to make a difference at a 'grass roots' level. 
Students studying web design at our college (Ultimo TAFE) are exposed 
to about as much evangelism as they can take! 
..


It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that TAFEs 
across the country may vary widely despite courses supposedly being 
drawn from a national based syllabus and providing national 
accreditation.


As I mentioned - we work of syllabus documents based on industry 
developed training packages that are often close to 10 years old. In IT 
that is an absurd situation. If the individual is working in isolation 
based on these documents it would be possible (and 'valid' from an 
assessment point of view) to deliver frames and table-based layout. We 
typically stretch or reinterpret the outcomes to make them relevant to 
current industry practice, but for the aforementioned reasons there is 
no guarantee that each TAFE will deliver the same content - even if you 
do identical modules.


TAFE is working reasonably hard on the concept of assessment validation 
- the goal being that every student will be trained to to the same level 
and assessed to this level regardless of college location. This has been 
difficult to achieve without using centralised assessments - an 
expensive and cumbersome approach with many problems of its own, 
including a real lack of flexibility.


I am sorry to hear that your experience of TAFE was less that optimal, 
but it is great to hear that they were willing to listen, and that you 
achieved what you wanted through the course. In many ways this is part 
of the education process, with your tutor taking on the role of a 
facilitator for your learning rather than the more classical 
lecturer/teacher role.

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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Paula Petrik]

FWIW. Here's an interesting item. Using the Syllabus Finder at the  
Center for History & New Media, I searched for "web design." The  
search returned about 189,000 results. As I looked through the first  
couple of pages of listings, I was struck by the range of departments  
in the web design ed biz and the number of web standards folks.  
Perhaps things are not as bad as first impressions might suggest. If  
you're interested, Syllabus Finder is available at:


http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/syllabi/

Best,
Paula

Paula Petrik
Professor
Department of History & Art History
Associate Director
Center for History & New Media
George Mason University
http://www.archiva.net





On Feb 13, 2006, at 10:24 AM, Chris Taylor wrote:

A large university here in the UK offers web design courses. But I  
don't

hold out much hope for the future when they have things like this in
their syllabus:

"Without the use of tables, all web pages would have to be  
presented in
purely linear form. Many creative uses of the screen would be  
impossible

to achieve. Although tables are a little trickier than other effects
used in basic web design, it is mainly a matter of remembering that
HTML's first purpose is to structure the page; tables are just an
extension of this basic idea. Once you have mastered the basics,  
you can

get some very sophisticated effects with table tags."

(Taken from
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/webdesign/materials/lesson4.html)

Has anyone attended this course? Is it really as bad as all that? To
what extent can students do it "the right way" without being penalised
from straying from the Official Course Documentation?

And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and  
apathy
towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that  
the

recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.

Chris Taylor
www.stillbreathing.co.uk
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[James Gollan]

Christian Montoya wrote:

On 2/13/06, James Gollan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  

Chris Taylor wrote:


And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and apathy
towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that the
recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.

  

I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions
are still teaching table based design.



Yes, we know. I've told the list before that the classes I take at
Cornell teach standards based design with CSS, and it's exciting to
know that all my peers are standardistas like me. But it is very easy
for professors to go against change and keep teaching the same
methods... and if the sites they use are Google-Amazon-Ebay, they
might not even notice that anything has changed. 
Absolutely agree that the institution can provide a fairly protected 
environment for those who want to use it that way - the inertia 
generated by tenure and impending retirement is often insurmountable! 
Encouraging student feedback seems to be one of the only ways of change 
in this situation.

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Re: Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[Mark Harris]

Terrence Wood wrote:

Herrod, Lisa wrote:
Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web design 
education".
What does that mean and where does it come from? Someone else sent me 
one of those recently.



Generally, it means someone is using Outlook on an MS-Exchange server as 
their mail set up. Exchange allows you to recall messages on your local 
server if the recipient hasn't opened it yet. It doesn't work outside 
your local environment though.


I think Lisa sent what was meant to be a private message to the list, 
because the default reply-to is to the list. Lisa was probably so busy 
being usable, she forgot to validate her mail ;-)


cheers

Mark Harris
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Re: Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[Samuel Richardson]

It's an Outlook feature to recall emails once they've been sent, only 
useful if everyone in your organisation is running Outlook though.



Terrence Wood wrote:

Herrod, Lisa wrote:

Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web design 
education".


What does that mean and where does it come from? Someone else sent me 
one of those recently.



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Re: Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[Terrence Wood]

Herrod, Lisa wrote:
Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web design 
education".
What does that mean and where does it come from? Someone else sent me 
one of those recently.



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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Minh D. Tran]

At least we know now that that class "designing with tables" is not being taught as we're speaking..."Patrick H. Lauke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:  Minh D. Tran wrote:> Great! Please keep us up to date as I am very interested in hearing > about it. Also, let me know if there's anything I can do. Thank you.I got an auto-reply telling me he left Leads to work at Manchester Uni. I forwarded the email to the two alternate contacts the email mentioned.Incidentally, the (C) at the bottom of the pages is 2004...this may or may not be old content that just hasn't been removed.P-- Patrick H. Lauke__re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]www.splintered.co.uk |
 www.photographia.co.ukhttp://redux.deviantart.com__Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Forcehttp://webstandards.org/__**The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfmfor some hints on posting to the list & getting help**
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RE: Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[Peter Williams]

> From: Herrod, Lisa
> 
> Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web 
> design education".

Lisa Herrod is funny :-)

-- 
Peter Williams
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Christian Montoya]

On 2/13/06, James Gollan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Chris Taylor wrote:
> > And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
> > accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and apathy
> > towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that the
> > recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.
> >
> I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions
> are still teaching table based design.

Yes, we know. I've told the list before that the classes I take at
Cornell teach standards based design with CSS, and it's exciting to
know that all my peers are standardistas like me. But it is very easy
for professors to go against change and keep teaching the same
methods... and if the sites they use are Google-Amazon-Ebay, they
might not even notice that anything has changed. And, unfortunately, a
professor like this one has far more influence than any
big-name-design-firm. Far more.

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Ric Raftis]

James Gollan wrote:

I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions 
are still teaching table based design. As an educator I feel I am in a 
great position to make a difference at a 'grass roots' level. Students 
studying web design at our college (Ultimo TAFE) are exposed to about 
as much evangelism as they can take! ..


It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that TAFEs 
across the country may vary widely despite courses supposedly being 
drawn from a national based syllabus and providing national accreditation.


I recently completed a Certificate IV in Web Design at the Bendigo TAFE 
(BRIT) and my experience was anything but what you describe.  Students 
were permitted to design their final assignment, a total web site of 
their choosing, in any layout they wished, even Frames!  Yes, they were 
expected to validate both their xhtml and css, but only to low levels.  
Tables seemed to be the most popular layout used.  Personally, I did the 
course to learn more about css layouts and I achieved this.  Some help 
was achieved through contact with one particular lecturer who was 
enthusiastic, but out of date and teaching deprecated tags at times.  
However, to his credit, he was willing to do the research and admit his 
shortcomings.  Most of my learning regarding structure of css sites came 
from active participation in a forum at www.htmlforums.com where the 
moderators are certainly evangelists for css layouts.


Regards,

Ric

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Recall: [WSG] Web design education

[Herrod, Lisa]

Herrod, Lisa would like to recall the message, "[WSG] Web design education".
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RE: [WSG] Web design education

[Herrod, Lisa]

:) good work Jimmy G, and thanks for the good press!

looking forward to coming out there... you know if there was ever a chance
to teach the usability I'd jump at it!

lisa

> -Original Message-
> From: James Gollan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, 14 February 2006 8:00 AM
> To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org; Russ Weakly
> Subject: Re: [WSG] Web design education
> 
> 
> Chris Taylor wrote:
> > And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
> > accessibility evangelists to do about the continued 
> ingorance and apathy
> > towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's 
> hope that the
> > recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.
> >
> >   
> I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions 
> are still teaching table based design. As an educator I feel 
> I am in a 
> great position to make a difference at a 'grass roots' level. 
> Students 
> studying web design at our college (Ultimo TAFE) are exposed 
> to about as 
> much evangelism as they can take! There is a brief mention of 
> tables for 
> design, but as a primer for what they may find themselves 
> working with 
> in industry. Every site that they design should validate to a strict 
> doctype (they choose between HTML and XHMTL after being 
> presented with 
> the arguments for and against) and use CSS for all aspects of layout. 
> They spend an hour and a half per week studying usability and 
> accessibility, they have access to multiple browsers, 
> operating systems, 
> and even JAWS (until recently :( ). First lesson they are directed to 
> join this list!
> Past teachers have been such luminaries as Lisa Herrod and 
> Roger Hudson, 
> and, at the end of semester when they are dizzy from this barrage of 
> evangalism, they get a good talking to from people such as 
> Russ Weakley, 
> Lindsay Evans, Peter Ottery, Lisa Herrod and Roger Hudson (not all on 
> the same bill, unfortunately).
> I know of other TAFE's (particularly Blue Mountains) that 
> have a similar 
> approach toward standards.
> Unfortunately it often comes down to the teachers at the educational 
> institution to promote this viewpoint, as syllabus documents are 
> normally vague and hopelessly out of date. We are currently 
> working of a 
> training package that was first developed around 1997 (may have been 
> 1999, but hell, it's old). It mentions tables for layout etc.
> I am sure that other institutions would be taking a similar 
> approach to 
> web design as us If not, hopefully the word will get out and 
> the course 
> will either drop off or modify its content. We do have 
> mailing lists for 
> educators in TAFE to try to disseminate the knowledge and facilitate 
> discussion.
> I agree that there can be an apathy in educational 
> institutions - often 
> as a result of the institutional structure - but it is not 
> necessarily 
> the case.
> Just wanted to point that out ;)
> **
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> 
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> 
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Minh D. Tran wrote:
Great! Please keep us up to date as I am very interested in hearing 
about it. Also, let me know if there's anything I can do. Thank you.


I got an auto-reply telling me he left Leads to work at Manchester Uni. 
I forwarded the email to the two alternate contacts the email mentioned.


Incidentally, the (C) at the bottom of the pages is 2004...this may or 
may not be old content that just hasn't been removed.


P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
__
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
__
Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
__
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Minh D. Tran]

Great! Please keep us up to date as I am very interested in hearing about it. Also, let me know if there's anything I can do. Thank you."Patrick H. Lauke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:  Minh D. Tran wrote:> One of our responsibility as a member of the WSG is to "Promote "web > standards" within the development community," so here is our chance. If > we don't do anything about this, than that totally defeats the purpose > of WSG's existence. Where do we start?Well, as a start, I emailed Drew (course leader on that particular course) pointing at the web-based mail archive for this list. Small moves, small moves.P-- Patrick H. Lauke__re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see
 duke.]www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.ukhttp://redux.deviantart.com__Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Forcehttp://webstandards.org/__**The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfmfor some hints on posting to the list & getting help**
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[James Gollan]

Chris Taylor wrote:

And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and apathy
towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that the
recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.

  
I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions 
are still teaching table based design. As an educator I feel I am in a 
great position to make a difference at a 'grass roots' level. Students 
studying web design at our college (Ultimo TAFE) are exposed to about as 
much evangelism as they can take! There is a brief mention of tables for 
design, but as a primer for what they may find themselves working with 
in industry. Every site that they design should validate to a strict 
doctype (they choose between HTML and XHMTL after being presented with 
the arguments for and against) and use CSS for all aspects of layout. 
They spend an hour and a half per week studying usability and 
accessibility, they have access to multiple browsers, operating systems, 
and even JAWS (until recently :( ). First lesson they are directed to 
join this list!
Past teachers have been such luminaries as Lisa Herrod and Roger Hudson, 
and, at the end of semester when they are dizzy from this barrage of 
evangalism, they get a good talking to from people such as Russ Weakley, 
Lindsay Evans, Peter Ottery, Lisa Herrod and Roger Hudson (not all on 
the same bill, unfortunately).
I know of other TAFE's (particularly Blue Mountains) that have a similar 
approach toward standards.
Unfortunately it often comes down to the teachers at the educational 
institution to promote this viewpoint, as syllabus documents are 
normally vague and hopelessly out of date. We are currently working of a 
training package that was first developed around 1997 (may have been 
1999, but hell, it's old). It mentions tables for layout etc.
I am sure that other institutions would be taking a similar approach to 
web design as us If not, hopefully the word will get out and the course 
will either drop off or modify its content. We do have mailing lists for 
educators in TAFE to try to disseminate the knowledge and facilitate 
discussion.
I agree that there can be an apathy in educational institutions - often 
as a result of the institutional structure - but it is not necessarily 
the case.

Just wanted to point that out ;)
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Tom Livingston]

On 2/13/06 3:23 PM, "Patrick H. Lauke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Minh D. Tran wrote:
>> One of our responsibility as a member of the WSG is to "Promote "web
>> standards" within the development community," so here is our chance. If
>> we don't do anything about this, than that totally defeats the purpose
>> of WSG's existence. Where do we start?

Any chance their course description has just not been updated since 1995?
Just going with the benefit of the doubt, you know?

-- 

Tom Livingston
Senior Multimedia Artist
Media Logic
www.mlinc.com




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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Minh D. Tran wrote:
One of our responsibility as a member of the WSG is to "Promote "web 
standards" within the development community," so here is our chance. If 
we don't do anything about this, than that totally defeats the purpose 
of WSG's existence. Where do we start?


Well, as a start, I emailed Drew (course leader on that particular 
course) pointing at the web-based mail archive for this list. Small 
moves, small moves.


P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
__
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
__
Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
__
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Minh D. Tran]

One of our responsibility as a member of the WSG is to "Promote "web standards" within the development community," so here is our chance. If we don't do anything about this, than that totally defeats the purpose of WSG's existence. Where do we start?Jay Gilmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:  Minh D. Tran wrote:> I personally believe as "Accessibility Evangelists," part of our > responsibilities is to bring this to their attention. These are web > designing instructors, they are teaching more and more people to design > the "tables" way, which is the exact way that we are trying eliminate.> This is the exact same reason for my main argument in my thread on Calling for a scalable business case for web standards for small business. My point was, and still is, that groups like WaSP and WSG need to take more
 of an advocacy role on in the larger community. Yes it makes sense to convert the people who have gone through these programs but if business demanded that sites be standards based and accessible then schools who teach otherwise will stop graduating people into nested table hell.Don't tell me to join a WSG in my local area. Don't tell me that we should just keep doing the work. We need to get up on our soap boxes and convert business, thought leaders and educators that standards matter and that building a broken web is bad for everyone.I know that there are members of WaSP who are trying to get educators on board but there is still a bunch of people out there who are ex graphic designers or visual developers who know only Dreamweaver or StopDead (GoLive) who are asked to teach because they have won some prize or worked for a big company.All the best,Jay-- Jay GilmoreDeveloper /
 ConsultantSmashingRed Web & MarketingP] 902.529.0651E] [EMAIL PROTECTED]U] http://www.smashingred.comB] http://www.smashingred.com/blog**The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfmfor some hints on posting to the list & getting help**__Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com 

Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Jay Gilmore]

Minh D. Tran wrote:
I personally believe as "Accessibility Evangelists," part of our 
responsibilities is to bring this to their attention. These are web 
designing instructors, they are teaching more and more people to design 
the "tables" way, which is the exact way that we are trying eliminate.


This is the exact same reason for my main argument in my thread on 
Calling for a scalable business case for web standards for small 
business. My point was, and still is, that groups like WaSP and WSG need 
to take more of an advocacy role on in the larger community. Yes it 
makes sense to convert the people who have gone through these programs 
but if business demanded that sites be standards based and accessible 
then schools who teach otherwise will stop graduating people into nested 
table hell.


Don't tell me to join a WSG in my local area. Don't tell me that we 
should just keep doing the work. We need to get up on our soap boxes and 
convert business, thought leaders and educators that standards matter 
and that building a broken web is bad for everyone.


I know that there are members of WaSP who are trying to get educators on 
board but there is still a bunch of people out there who are ex graphic 
designers or visual developers who know only Dreamweaver or StopDead 
(GoLive) who are asked to teach because they have won some prize or 
worked for a big company.


All the best,

Jay
--
Jay Gilmore
Developer / Consultant
SmashingRed Web & Marketing
P] 902.529.0651
E] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
U] http://www.smashingred.com
B] http://www.smashingred.com/blog
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Minh D. Tran]

I personally believe as "Accessibility Evangelists," part of our responsibilities is to bring this to their attention. These are web designing instructors, they are teaching more and more people to design the "tables" way, which is the exact way that we are trying eliminate.Stephen Stagg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:  That's a major reason why I didn't go to university, you don't learn nuffink(sic. :) ) useful. and have to pay around £10,000 for the privilegeStephenOn 13 Feb 2006, at 15:24, Chris Taylor wrote:> A large university here in the UK offers web design courses. But I > don't> hold out much hope for the future when they have things like this in> their syllabus:>> "Without the use of tables, all web pages would have to be > presented in> purely linear form. Many
 creative uses of the screen would be > impossible> to achieve. Although tables are a little trickier than other effects> used in basic web design, it is mainly a matter of remembering that> HTML's first purpose is to structure the page; tables are just an> extension of this basic idea. Once you have mastered the basics, > you can> get some very sophisticated effects with table tags.">> (Taken from> http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/webdesign/materials/lesson4.html)>> Has anyone attended this course? Is it really as bad as all that? To> what extent can students do it "the right way" without being penalised> from straying from the Official Course Documentation?>> And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and> accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and > apathy> towards this vital subject, especially in academia?
 Let's hope that > the> recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.>> Chris Taylor> www.stillbreathing.co.uk> **> The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/>> See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm> for some hints on posting to the list & getting help> **>**The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfmfor some hints on posting to the list & getting help**
	
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Juergen Auer]

Hello,

On 13 Feb 2006 at 15:24, Chris Taylor wrote:

> "Without the use of tables, all web pages would have to be presented in
> purely linear form.

thanks about such a sequence (or joke?). Ok, I read the same on the
'lesson4.html', there this is not a joke. But it's interesting to
read such a statement 2006 (or 2004).

I think, we should send them a lot of links with pages created
without any table and showing more non-linear elements.

Tables are excellent showing tabular data.

Regards,
Juergen Auer



Jürgen Auer, http://www.sql-und-xml.de/
Web-Datenbanken zum Mieten
Friedenstr. 37, 10 249 Berlin
Tel.: (030) 420 20 060
Fax: (030) 420 19 819
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[Stephen Stagg]

That's a major reason why I didn't go to university, you don't learn  
nuffink(sic. :) ) useful. and have to pay around £10,000 for the  
privilege


Stephen

On 13 Feb 2006, at 15:24, Chris Taylor wrote:

A large university here in the UK offers web design courses. But I  
don't

hold out much hope for the future when they have things like this in
their syllabus:

"Without the use of tables, all web pages would have to be  
presented in
purely linear form. Many creative uses of the screen would be  
impossible

to achieve. Although tables are a little trickier than other effects
used in basic web design, it is mainly a matter of remembering that
HTML's first purpose is to structure the page; tables are just an
extension of this basic idea. Once you have mastered the basics,  
you can

get some very sophisticated effects with table tags."

(Taken from
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/webdesign/materials/lesson4.html)

Has anyone attended this course? Is it really as bad as all that? To
what extent can students do it "the right way" without being penalised
from straying from the Official Course Documentation?

And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and  
apathy
towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that  
the

recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.

Chris Taylor
www.stillbreathing.co.uk
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Re: [WSG] Web design education

[standards]

Chris,

I've conducted several courses in CSS at a local community college where
CSS-based designs are emphasized. The faculty and students embrace Web
Standards, and understand the inherit value of using standard's
technologies.

All is not lost :)

Respectfully yours,
Mario S. Cisneros

> A large university here in the UK offers web design courses. But I don't
> hold out much hope for the future when they have things like this in
> their syllabus:
>
> "Without the use of tables, all web pages would have to be presented in
> purely linear form. Many creative uses of the screen would be impossible
> to achieve. Although tables are a little trickier than other effects
> used in basic web design, it is mainly a matter of remembering that
> HTML's first purpose is to structure the page; tables are just an
> extension of this basic idea. Once you have mastered the basics, you can
> get some very sophisticated effects with table tags."
>
> (Taken from
> http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/webdesign/materials/lesson4.html)
>
> Has anyone attended this course? Is it really as bad as all that? To
> what extent can students do it "the right way" without being penalised
> from straying from the Official Course Documentation?
>
> And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
> accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and apathy
> towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that the
> recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.
>
> Chris Taylor
> www.stillbreathing.co.uk
> **
> The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
>  See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
>  for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
> **



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[WSG] Web design education

[Chris Taylor]

A large university here in the UK offers web design courses. But I don't
hold out much hope for the future when they have things like this in
their syllabus:

"Without the use of tables, all web pages would have to be presented in
purely linear form. Many creative uses of the screen would be impossible
to achieve. Although tables are a little trickier than other effects
used in basic web design, it is mainly a matter of remembering that
HTML's first purpose is to structure the page; tables are just an
extension of this basic idea. Once you have mastered the basics, you can
get some very sophisticated effects with table tags."

(Taken from
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/webdesign/materials/lesson4.html)

Has anyone attended this course? Is it really as bad as all that? To
what extent can students do it "the right way" without being penalised
from straying from the Official Course Documentation?

And, a larger question for us all: what are we as web standards and
accessibility evangelists to do about the continued ingorance and apathy
towards this vital subject, especially in academia? Let's hope that the
recent Target website court case in the US highlights the cause.

Chris Taylor
www.stillbreathing.co.uk
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