education question- web design

[bigjohn]

I'm helping redesign a high school eCommerce/web design course and was wanting input from some folks working in this field professionally. I've received some input from a few but thought I'd see what you guys might want to add.

The course is very old, so I've got some pretty major revisions to do. Specifically, the old course had no CSS (or just a quick mention of it) and we'll be hammering that pretty hard. Everything is notepad/hand coding (we offer a second level of the course where they can dig into Dreamweaver and Flash a bit).

Some specifics I've been wondering:

How much html 5 should we be including?
What are some current trends and future considerations we should include (besides mobile applications and social networking)?

Any info you guys can give will be useful. The course is pretty much divided into about half "content" (marketing type stuff) and about half "code" (hands on creating websites with some graphic design included). Students coming into the class will have a few weeks of basic html and graphic design under their belt.

Thanks for any info you can throw my way!

 

[CaldwellYSR]

I'd use as much HTML5 as possible. All of the html5 really... officially it's not a standard yet but let's be serious now.... it IS a standard even if W3C hasn't made it official yet. If you teach them html4 then they're going to be behind if they decide to try to make a future in web design.

Also I wouldn't necessarily force them into using notepad, maybe at the beginning but there are so many free programs that help with menial tasks like closing tags that it really isn't worthwhile after the first few weeks to make them drag along with notepad.

Finally, (man this feels like a high school essay) you mentioned a second course where they can "dig into DW and flash". Two things: 1) Please don't let them use DW as a WYSIWYG editor. There's nothing wrong with using DW in code view but design view is just bad. 2) Nix flash... all of it. Flash is good for many things but web design is NOT one of them. Load times, SEO, load times.... the cons outweigh the pros by leaps and bounds. Javascript is definitely the way to go in that regard.

If you need a guest speaker to rant and rave about WYSIWYG editors and/or flash then let me know!

 

[benjamin.morgan]

Also there is things such as html5shiv to make things work in an older browser.

 

[Phreaddee]

and please no table layouts!

CSS is of utmost importance.
no inline styles should be taught at all.

HTML5 is worth teaching primarily because it will put the students in a good position when they graduate.

 

[lisayling]

thank you, i will regard it as a good idea,
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[ronaldroe]

I agree with pretty much everything but this:

Also I wouldn't necessarily force them into using notepad, maybe at the beginning but there are so many free programs that help with menial tasks like closing tags that it really isn't worthwhile after the first few weeks to make them drag along with notepad.

For learning to code, as well as learning to troubleshoot code, there is nothing better than a basic text editor. Make your students aware of what's out there, sure, but I think it'd be better to go basic for the course itself.

I'd also like to reiterate one major point: dump flash. Most things people use it for can be done with just a little creative CSS, or some JavaScript at most.

 

[leroy30]

* Do not use table based layouts, use CSS instead.
* Have a look into CSS3 selectors and some nifty tricks the students will like such as gradients, rounded corners and shadows.http://css3generator.com/ will be a useful tool in this regard.
* Use as much HTML5 as possible as it is quickly becoming standard particularly by the time your students enter the real world!
* Do not use Dream Weaver Nor Flash. Reasons as per the first reply to this post.
* I'd recommend Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express it's a free product from Microsoft. They have some features that will make your students life much easier such as master pages for creating page templates and user controls for creating re-usable sections of html.
* Touch on mobile devices and what needs to be done to make websites readable on a mobile device.

 

[bigjohn]

thanks!

Some good information there and sounds very doable. I'm not in charge of the second level course (which does the Dreamweaver/Flash stuff) but I hope to get on that development committee next year.

As for this course, I really appreciate the advice. I've been steering my kids away from table layouts and teaching some CSS even though it's not really in the official course yet.

Thanks again, and I'm sure I'll be around here asking some more questions along the way. If anyone has more tips feel free to add them.

 

[karlaa]

good luck with the highschool project. karla

 

[krymson]

When I was in web mastering classes in high school some 5 years ago I learned a lot by the second year i ended up teaching the class, and between me and another guy who was more into graphics, we rebuilt the school site. I single handedly coded the 20 template pages. Not to gloat but I digress... When I started teaching the class I showed them the difference between tables and css and they found css to be easier to change design and color scheme. We started out on NotePad and of course we had to use DW which I still use today because I'm so familiar with it (coder plus view). But I believe if you show them how to build a site and code css from scratch using notepad you will give them a solid foundation for the future. But don't drag it out... As for flash teach them nothing about web design for it, strictly cartooning and game design thats all its good for anymore really.

Teach HTML5 your going to better equip them for the future with that as there are many applications being developed in HTML5 so it gives them options in life as a developer or a designer or even both. With that said you have to compliment it with the right CSS making sure you have your resets to make sure all the new elements are ( display:block; ). Otherwise you will run into troubles and you will get discouraged and end up taking it out of the curriculum.

To get to my point why teach them old techniques when they can learn the new way that is working and is becoming the standard today? Invest the time to learn it and teach it to them... as a teacher that's investing in your students futures.

If you want a good tutorial series visit http://thedspot.co.cc/tutorials written by our very own CaldwellYSR he's still working on the CSS tutorial to go along with it but I will start to give you a solid understanding of HTML5 and how to use the new tags and explains the markup...