Webucation: What I learned at Barcamp DC
This past Saturday I attended my second Barcamp DC. If you are not familiar with what barcamp is you can read what I have written about it in the past here and here.
This year the talk that really caught my attention was that of Jeff Brown’s, a teacher at Damascus High School in Montgomery County Maryland and a member of the Web Standards Project Education Task Force. Jeff’s talk focused on “Webucation”, and the still very wide gap between what is being taught in college Web Design classes and what is being practiced online and in the industry.
While have been teaching part-time at CDIA-BU, Jeff’s topic caught my attention because of an experience I had about 6 months ago speaking with a group of graduating seniors in a Design program (that includes web design courses) at a local well respected university. While talking to about 30 students I asked them questions like “Do you know what user experience, interaction design, or information architecture is?” with shocking results. Not only were they unfamiliar with the terminology, few seemed to care about possible opportunities in web design. HTML, and CSS? forget it. While I am very aware that I did not learn that stuff when I was in school, a lot of time has passed since then and I really expected more of a progression towards web standards, industry technology, and well… basic interaction design.
After having that experience it became very apparent to me that the majority of higher educational institutions are very behind. It has since been on my mind and it is one of the reasons I so excitedly jumped on board when I heard about teaching part time at CDIA-BU (because they are on top of their stuff). Throughout Jeff’s talk he shared his personal experiences of interviewing with a college and his take-aways from the interview only confirmed many of the predictions I had about other institutions and how they are handling teaching web design. After proposing possible classes he could teach the interviewer came back and explained that word processing and “flash animation (for gaming)” were possible opportunities.
So, what was Jeff’s advice on how to solve these predicaments? Find a non-confrontational approach and become a “Webucator”. Make it a priority to be a guest speaker for a class, visit a college campus, or just step up to be an example for students to follow. Jeff’s talk was definitely one of the most unique and inspirational talks I have sat in at Barcamp DC and I really felt like his message is worthy of passing along.
In addition to sharing his message I want to point out an easy way for any of you guys to step up and help Jeff’s mission as a “webucator”: donate to the Web Program at Damascus High School. Jeff teaches a fantastic group of High School students the wonders of Web standards, and is even taking them to the Future of Web Design Conference on Nov 4th. A High School field trip to see Paul Boag, Dan Mall, Hillman Curtis, & Khoi Vinh talk about the awesomeness of all things web? How rad is that! Even if it is just a few dollars it would be an awesome, and very easy way to contribute to the webucation of the people who will be determining the future of web design.
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Photo by Jason Garber
October 19th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Having recently graduated from a well-respected (I think) university, I’ve witnessed this first hand. At most, students learned to slice a Photoshop file into a table for Dreamweaver, with no regard for standards, usability, or best practices. Flash was gratuitously spread. Conversations were, “Wouldn’t it be cool if **insert worthless effect** happened while the site loaded?” instead of, “Wouldn’t it be cool if your site didn’t need a loading screen?”
The fundamentals my program taught were strong, but poorly-applied to designing for the web.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Nice article Samantha. I agree, it is time to do something about it. And to reiterate your point Samantha, you don’t have to be a teacher to be a “webucator”, you can become an advocate simply by speaking where you know others will listen. Change will not happen on its own.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Great post! I am a huge Jeff Brown fan, and enjoy touting along on this webucator path with him.
Sad to have missed the event :( but glad to hear the positive responses :)
October 20th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Way to go on your talk, sorry I missed it. I was told it was one of the two best talks that people went to and the other was Jeff Brown’s talk that you have reviewed here.
Great overview of one of the best talks at BarCampDC from what everyone was saying. We all need to educate co-workers, students, and others that might not know better. I’m glad this was one of the only talks I was able to get to and it was well worth my time.
What he and Zac Gordon of Spring Brook high school in Silver Spring are trying to do for their kids is great. His I had passionate teachers like that when I was in high school or for most of my college days.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:30 am
Samantha, thanks again for coming to BarCampDC. Hope you had a good time!
I’m bummed that I didn’t see more of Jeff’s talk. I heard a lot of folks talk about it as a favorite of the day.
Looks like I’ll be at FOWD. Can’t wait to meet his class.