WebStandards Archives - Page 26 of 38

First Buzz about the WaSP Curriculum Framework

I’ve been blathering on about the new WaSP curriculum project for months now in this blog. It isn’t released yet, but WaSP itself has released the first buzz about it. Announcing the WaSP Curriculum Framework.

The framework will include a collection of tools:

* Course overviews
* Recommended course dependencies indicating what students will need to know before beginning each course
* Learning competencies describing what students must master in order to receive a passing grade
* Ideas for assignments and test questions that allow educators to measure a student’s mastery of each competency
* Recommended textbooks and readings, including articles from the Opera Web Standards Curriculum and other reputable sources
* A list of helpful resources, tools, and utilities specific to each course that will help both educators and students

Why is it called a framework? Given the velocity at which Web technology unravels, we recognize that required skill sets can change rapidly, and that the best way to keep this material useful is for the education community to enrich it with their expertise and experiences. In this way, the WaSP Curriculum Framework will be a “living curriculum” that we hope would be a knowledge base of required skills.

The framework will include guidelines to help educators around the world develop assignments and learning modules that address issues specific to their classrooms. These independently developed teaching materials can then be submitted back to the WaSP Curriculum Framework for review and potential inclusion in the project.

WaSP releases curriculum survey results

Education professionals were asked about what they are doing and what they think should be done in terms of teaching web design courses at the college level. The survey results were released by the WaSP Education Task Force at Curriculum Survey Results.

The WaSP Education Task Force hopes to make the survey available again so that results can be kept current. Keep in mind that Opera just released a web standards curriculum and WaSP is getting ready to do the same. Some of the issues raised by participants of the survey (which was taken several months ago), such as the the lack of appropriate materials and reference materials, may be addressed by these two new curriculum projects.

Useful Links

How magic might finally fix your computer, an article by Bob Sullivan at the Red Tape Chronicles, describes the issues that plague us in regard to computer security, and explains why folks like The Amazing Randi might be able to help us.

Then and Now in Standards: What’s Different at Burningbird’s Real Tech talks about standards, Microsoft’s decision to implement the non-standards Silverlight technology, and SVG.

SynthaSite, a free drag and drop web building tool that that I reviewed previously on Web Teacher and also on eHow, announced that they have improved their interface and promise better usabilility and simplified menu systems. I’ll have to find the time to take a look and see if they really have improved things. Stay tuned.

Opera Web Standards Curriculum

Opera announced their Web Standards Curriculum is now available. This is a big deal to many of us working on web standards and education. Here’s their intro:

Learning Web Standards just got easier. Opera’s new Web Standards Curriculum is a complete course to teach you standards-based web development, including HTML, CSS, design principles and background theory, and JavaScript basics. It already has support from many organizations (including Yahoo! and the Web Standards Project) and universities.

The introduction and table of contents, written by Chris Mills, explains what is there now and what is still in development, who will find the curriculum useful, and how to use it.

Chris Mills is also a member of the WaSP Education Task Force that is also developing a web standards curriculum.

What’s your position on pixels, ems and percentages?

What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the various measures—pixels, ems, percentage—used on the web? Do you have a favorite that you fall back on using most of the time? If so, why?

Useful links

Migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0 by Roger Hudson at the Web Industry Professionals Association website is a well organized summary of the changes.

Even if you aren’t an iPhone user, you may be a .Mac user. Apple announced today, along with a bunch of stuff about the new iPhone, that .Mac is becoming MobileMe at me.com. Me.com works for both Mac and Windows users to sync everything from your iPhone or iPod touch with the stuff in your computer’s email, calendar, etc. Another announcement I thought was important that might be overlooked in all the 3G, price drop hoopla—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all now fully functional on an iPhone.

W3C: Web Accessibility for Older Users

The W3C released Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review recently. It isn’t guidelines, it’s merely a review of existing material.

This document provides a review and analysis of guidelines and articles relating to the needs of older people with Web accessibility needs due to ageing, and compares these with the needs of people with disabilities as already addressed in WAI guidelines. The focus is particularly on Europe but applies internationally as well. This review is being undertaken in order to inform the development of educational materials which can better promote the needs of people who have accessibility needs due to ageing, and potential development of profiles and/or extensions on WAI guidelines.

Here’s part of the table of contents with links intact:

This review of literature is not so insulting to older users as a set of guidelines published at Webcredible a few months ago titled Usability for older web users, which implied that anyone “older” was an untrainable dolt with no cognitive ability.