>
> Ultimately teachers should aim to teach the skills that are required of
> students entering the industry.


The TAFE students I tutor in Sydney are being taught XHTML, XML, CSS
table-free layouts, and so on, so not a bad start. The JavaScript courses
look like they could use some improvement (see below). I think the biggest
shortcoming though is that students are being taught the skills with no
context, i.e. they are not taught how to further perpetuate their skills,
which is an important shortcoming in an industry that evolves so rapidly.


> On a side note, my personal opinion on web media courses focusing on rich
> web content is that they should still entail the bare basics of HTML, XHTML,
> and CSS, with a toe-dip into JavaScript. These technologies are so
> fundamental to the web, and given their role as standards they should be
> part of any web-related courses.
>

One of the most consistent problems I encounter when tutoring students is
that a "toe-dip" into JavaScript simply doesn't work. JS is a fully-fledged
OO scripting language, and as such in order to teach it properly a
grassroots introduction to OO concepts is necessary. The course seems to
have improved in the last year or so, in that they are teaching more current
applications of JS, but that's about it.

- James



On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Simon Pascal Klein <kle...@klepas.org>wrote:

>
> On 10/01/2009, at 6:50 AM, Matt Morgan-May wrote:
>
>  Hi,
>>
>> Excuse me for jumping in here, especially (in this case) as a Flash
>> partisan. But I fail to see how this kind of project can be anything other
>> than a good thing overall.
>>
>> What I don't understand is why people are instantly critical of projects
>> that are actually attempting to increase access to new technology. I've
>> heard a constant drumbeat of "don't use Flash: it's inaccessible" in the
>> years I've been involved in the field. But if we don't have people pushing
>> that envelope, doesn't that make that statement self-fulfilling prophecy?
>> There are lots of us out there working on improving the accessibility of
>> both existing and future content authored in Flash.
>>
>> There are many arguments to be made for HTML -- I made loads of them while
>> working for W3C, all of which I would stand by today -- but it is not all
>> things to all people. The fact is that many educators have found that they
>> can use Flash to teach their students effectively. I'm not an educator by
>> profession, but my wife is, and she prefers Flash over HTML/CSS/JS to
>> develop her courseware. If you were to tell her she's wrong, especially
>> before seeing what kind of work she does, I think you'd probably find
>> yourself dodging a couple shelves' worth of education texts. Telling a
>> professional their tools are wrong is not the most endearing of
>> approaches.
>> In my opinion, the best one can do is to learn what they're doing, and
>> offer
>> ways to make that output more efficient, more inclusive, and easier to
>> produce.
>>
>> Teachers aren't usually web developers, and we shouldn't want them to be.
>> So
>> I'm all for companies taking on the technical problems so teachers can be
>> teachers, and so on.
>>
>
> Ultimately teachers should aim to teach the skills that are required of
> students entering the industry. It's not uncommon that many secondary and
> tertiary IT and web media courses are grossly outdated. From my experience
> this is mostly attributed to the teacher's education in the field which they
> received when they did their tertiary education in order to teach, and have
> since not remained up to date with new developments and sadly even
> standards. Money and a requirement to regularly attend courses to keep
> educators up to date help in this regard but nothing beats personal
> interest—the high school IT teacher that in their own time is actively
> involved in his or her field will be more likely to teach his students about
> the latest relevant and exciting bleeding edge technologies.
>
> On a side note, my personal opinion on web media courses focusing on rich
> web content is that they should still entail the bare basics of HTML, XHTML,
> and CSS, with a toe-dip into JavaScript. These technologies are so
> fundamental to the web, and given their role as standards they should be
> part of any web-related courses.
>
> Just my 2¢. Thanks for raising this topic. (:
>
>
> —Pascal
>
>
>  Thanks,
>> M
>> Accessibility Engineer, Adobe
>>
>> Christie Mason said:
>>
>>> Exactly right.  I've sadly watched Flash take over eLearning and still
>>> haven't figured out the attraction, except that it offers the control of
>>> PPT
>>> while appearing to be "rich".    There's only a very few types of web
>>> sites
>>> that still use Flash for delivering primary content - media sites, those
>>> that focus more on "look at me" instead of  being a resource to their
>>> site
>>> guests, and eLearning.
>>>
>>
>>  Since, supposedly, eLearning is about offering web based resources for
>>> learning it just doesn't make sense to me that it has ignored all the
>>> ways
>>> the web has supported, continues to support,  learning w/o using Flash.
>>> Flash on the web is like cooking with garlic.  A little adds depth, a lot
>>> is
>>> inedible.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
> ---
> Simon Pascal Klein
> Concept designer
>
> (w) http://klepas.org
> (e) kle...@klepas.org
>
>
>
>
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>


-- 
James Ducker
Web Developer
http://www.studioj.net.au

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