Lachlan Hardy wrote:
> The key component there, though, is convincing the relevant 
> curriculum bodies of the importance of standards-based design.

My thought (and I blogged on this today - interesting discussion!) is that it's 
not something to be "added" to a curriculum, rather it's part of teaching basic 
web design and the use of web development tools. It's just as easy to teach 
good coding as bad coding, and tools like Dreamweaver can be used to code to 
standards or not - so why not teach about standards from the start? Though I 
agree to get those words in a course outline (web standards, web accessibility 
and so on) might be a bit of a battle...

Nevertheless the teachers still need to somehow gain an understanding of why it 
is a good thing to teach web standards. Groups like the WSG have a big role to 
play there. For example, our first Perth WSG meeting was at Edith Cowan 
University and was attended by some of the teaching staff. (I'm not saying 
these staff members previously didn't know or care about web standards - not at 
all. But the thing is, we didn't know either way so it was a good opportunity 
and we hope they found it valuable in one way or another.) So getting out there 
amongst people who are in a position to change things is one potentially 
effective method. 

Vicki.  :-)

-- 
Vicki Berry
DistinctiveWeb
Web: http://www.distinctiveweb.com.au
Blog: http://www.unheardword.com
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