Comments on: EduTF Report Highlights Curriculum Project

By: The Stephanie Sullivan Interview : Christopher Schmitt

The Stephanie Sullivan Interview : Christopher Schmitt — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:50:13 +0000

[...] like schools and universities, find it difficult to change rapidly enough. For this reason the WaSP EduTF, SoDA and Opera are all working on curriculums that schools can use that are actually useful for [...]

By: jbr

jbr — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:02:29 +0000

great project

realy this is hard work keep it up….

By: Oren - Net Games

Oren - Net Games — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:03:32 +0000

Great news!

“Our first priority is to help educators give their students a very solid foundation in standards and industry best practices.”

Aarron, i agree with you. The community must help educators set the foundation.

By: Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd

Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:29:11 +0000

This is a great project. Encouraging the use of standards in schools and other academic institutions can only be good for the end user experience of the web.

I specialise in web accessibility and would be keen to take part in these discussions but it seems that I don’t qualify as I am not an educator. I think it would be good if the project did take in influence from people outside education as well.

By: Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd

Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:14:39 +0000

This is a great idea and it can only lead to improvements in the user experience of the web. My speciality is web accessibility and I would be keen to take part in these discussions but it appears that I wouldn’t be eligible as I have no educational experience.

As well as a large project like this, I think there is a lot that can be done at a local level just increasing awareness of standards in your local schools, and probably even simple things like encouraging IT teachers to make use of tools that produce standards based (and accessible) code by default.

By: Noclegi

Noclegi — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:55:49 +0000

It’s great you deal with the education in this direction. I respect you for it very much because this subject is very important for me. I hope, that I will somehow manage to make advantage of it too. Greetings

By: Chris B

Chris B — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:43:25 +0000

“Our first priority is to help educators give their students a very solid foundation in standards and industry best practices.”

Aarron, you are right indeed. The community does need to help educators set the foundation. Maybe I’m thinking ahead of myself or in terms of myself.

But this is a good start. Hats off to the EduTF Team for taking up this cause!

By: Manny

Manny — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:30:43 +0000

The curriculum project is one a rich resource that will definitely be forwarded to our college’s Web-related academic faculty, Holly, Aaron and rest of EduTF team. Rock n’ roll and thanks!

By: hmkoltz

hmkoltz — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:54:02 +0000

@Daniel S. , I am so glad to hear you place a lot of emphasis on standards — and yes, it will be great when more do. I know of an instructor who was pushing for standards (1998), and did emphasize them in his classrooms, even though the department was not as standards minded as he was.

@Chris B. — we sure hope to get the message to CIS and CIT departments, too. I think it is important to know the standards foundations in order to build software and applications which support the same. I will go as far as feeling and thinking that Web standards are needed for any digital content or could be — so my feeling is that the very basics of standards should be in any course which shares information or requests work digitally. :)

By: Aarron Walter

Aarron Walter — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:18:50 +0000

@Chris: Graduate level courses tend to focus less on how to do something (build a standards compliant document, use CSS to style a page, etc.), and more on theoretical stuff (nonlinear narrative, media theory). The initial release of the WaSP curriculum will be directed more towards undergraduate programs in colleges, and universities, as well as high schools. Our first priority is to help educators give their students a very solid foundation in standards and industry best practices.

We’ll continue to add courses to the the core curriculum to address advanced and niche topics, some of which will probably be more high level. If there are graduate level courses you’d like to see added in the future we’d love to hear your ideas.

@Daniel: Conversation is very important! Of course, once the curriculum is released we’ll need all the help we can get to spread the word and reach many educational institutions and accreditation bodies.