Advisory Committee Roundup
On Monday, November 7, 2005 we held our semi-annual advisory committee meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to allow members of industry to review our curriculum and offer suggestions for improvement. Our advisers were Jim Espinoza, the original webmaster for Hotmail, now a consultant and Tony Davis a developer and illustrator.
One of my major concerns was the amount of time that it takes to complete each unit since the overall course is only 720 hours (27 or 36 weeks depending on the hours the student attends). While I feel that students who complete our program will have much stronger skills, many of the units are taking too long to complete. Our discussion focused on areas of the curriculum that we can reduce or eliminate in order to make time for emerging technologies.
Here are some highlights of our discussion:
XHTML and CSS should continue to be the main focus of the course. Students should learn to create standards-compliant sites that validate at the W3C. Students should learn about accessibility and section 508 requirements. Both advisers were pleased to see that the course had already moved in this direction. The advisers agreed that we could reduce the number of case problems required for the XHTML unit. There were several discussions on how we could reconfigure the unit. Both advisers agree that the case problems for the JavaScript unit should be eliminated; if students want to pursue JavaScript beyond the basic tutorial they should consider taking courses at the local community college. Students should understand how to validate forms with JavaScript and use the numerous scripts that are available on the web. There was some discussion on using JavaScript for rollovers, but Tony felt that was best handled via CSS. Jim also brought up the point that many students who leave our program will utilize Dreamweaver which will generate JavaScript rollovers. Students should utilize external sites like CSS-Discuss on a regular basis to learn more about CSS.
Students should understand how to develop pages and CSS for hand held devices. This was very apparent as Jim was surfing on his Palm to find information to share with us. I will work to develop a supplemental unit and gather resources in this area.
Tony uses Dreamweaver to code all of his sites. He always works in code or split view so that he can have complete control over the code that’s created (students should do this too). Jim, hand codes all applications that he creates. Bottom line, both feel that Dreamweaver is an important skill to have, but the Dreamweaver curriculum can be revised to only require one case problem per chapter for practice to cut down the amount of time that it takes to complete the unit. I will also look at using another shorter book for the 4:15-6:15 p.m. course.
The Flash book is currently very comprehensive. While the advisers felt it was important to have a basic understanding of Flash, they felt that an introductory course would be better for certificate requirements. The comprehensive course will still be availabe for students who want to focus on Flash as an elective.
Fireworks will no longer be a requirement for the overall certificate, but it will remain as an elective. Photoshop will remain as a requirement for the overall certificate.
PHP/MySQL should be tought in the course. They liked the idea that there were multiple options for learning PHP/MySQL (via Dreamweaver or hand coding). They did not feel that Coldfusion or ASP needed to be offered in the course, as PHP is the dominant language in industry. They felt that the skills learned in the PHP/MySQL unit could easily be transferred to the other languages if needed. Students should have exposure to setting up and maintaining blogs, content management systems, and possibly wikis.
The advisers were happy to see that we were now offering InDesign and Illustrator.
The advisers liked my ideas about podcasting in class. They feel that I should develop a unit in this area and podcast my class discussions.
Hardware Discussion
The advisers recommened that the administration begin the hardware upgrade process. Classroom computers are over five years old and are slow to run multiple and more demanding applications. Handheld devices should be available in the classroom for testing. We should also consider upgrading the Macintosh.
Software Discussion
The advisers recommended that we upgrade to Macromedia Studio 8 within the school year. If funding is available we should also upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 2 within the next year.
Job Market
While the job market is improving, competition is fierce. The positive take on the job market is that varied positions in other industries are requiring some form of web development skills. For example, the administrative assistant or human resources staff member who is required to update job listings on the web, project managers who must be able to communicate with developers, small business owners who need to develop and manage their own sites. Next month I will be training police department officers and staff on how to develop web pages for internal and external organization use. These skills help to set apart a job candidate from the rest of the pack. More traditional jobs are now requiring a higher level of technical expertise. Also according to California statistics, the IT market is improving and growth is expected at a higher than average rate.
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November 10th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Thanks Robin. I agree wholeheartedly with your post. Reducing the repetitive caseload wouldn’t undermine the learning process from my perspective in the HTML or Dreamweaver courses. I spent WAY too much time on the cases, doing extraneous graphics and such. More attention to coding for the portables, ie. pda’s, is MUCH needed. As susual, you seem to be right on track with what will be best for students to use in obtaining future employment. I thank you for caring so much and taking the proactive position to stay in tune with current trends and standards.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Thanks Robin. I agree wholeheartedly with your post. Reducing the repetitive caseload wouldn’t undermine the learning process from my perspective in the HTML or Dreamweaver courses. I spent WAY too much time on the cases, doing extraneous graphics and such. More attention to coding for the portables, ie. pda’s, is MUCH needed. As usual, you seem to be right on track with what will be best for students to use in obtaining future employment. I thank you for caring so much and taking the proactive position to stay in tune with current trends and standards.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
please forgive the duplication…I tried to “go back” to edit a misspelling and regrettably, duplicated the post. Have a stellar weekend everyone!
November 10th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Robin thanks for the heads up about the changes in the curriculum and continuing to make the class a valuable asset. Adding a unit on podcasting would be very cool and reducing the unit on javascript would be a great help! People tend to get bogged down on the javscript unit and they end up wasting precious time, I know I did. Encouraging students to download trial software such as Adobe CS2 suite is a must since it will give them experience that some employers require and to stay ahead of the curve. I do that and it keeps me up to date. The job market is picking up for sure, and the job titles are changing as well, I’m now seeing a new titles of Web Content Specialists and Web Consultants, We all have created content so we can call ourselves content specialists!
November 10th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Great podcast, Robin. I really appreciate the thought you gave the curriculum and the proposed changes. Eliminating less relavent aspects is a great idea. As I learn, I love to expirement with which makes completing everything a challenge. For me, though, with the XHTML book, I found doing all four cases improved my understanding of coding and ability to manipulate it tremendously. THe first two cases are cakewalk anyways…you may have to add/code one or two things. The third always throws in a twist (unpracticed), and the fourth forces you to do a lot of independent and original coding. Maybe cut the case load down to two per unit, like the last two? Or strongly suggest doing all four unless the student feels confident they understand. Can’t comment on anything else, because I’ve been too busy playing with all the toys you discover and throw our way! Absolutely awesome class, Robin.
November 10th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Hi Robin,
Well – I’m glad to see that even though I missed the meeting it sure seems like I was there, given the conclusions you all came up with!
Good job! – And, again, I apologize for spacing out on the timing!