WebStuff 2.0

If you are a web developer who makes a living teaching web design, you may experience these emotions as I did this afternoon. Casually gleaning new stuff from my aggregator subscriptions and listservs I selected a link from Stephen Downes informative listserv and was sorta knocked out of my chair with the discovery of a new product that was so unusually rich and challenging that also seemed to take everything I have spent years learning and render it obsolete! Such is the power of new technologies. I can’t remember ever experiencing such contrasting emotions from such a simple act. I felt threatened, yet very excited. Fortunately I was able to share the product with a few faculty and then with one of my classes. We discussed its potential impact and our emotions after previewing the product demonstration and video. I think we will be in dialogue about it for some time to come, but it is comforting to have other professionals to share with about such events and new products.

Fear and trembling comes from the threat to the fabric of one’s daily practice. Excitement comes from the possibilities of a new technology that could dramatically impact global learning. Who knows where the wind blows.

If you are not into creating your own portal such as mygoogle, myyahoo, or netvibes you may get interested after visiting Zude. It is to be released in beta on May 1, so there is a waiting period, but a brief animated demo on the site will give you an idea of what’s to come and the video of the developers and a live demonstration will rock you. There is also an informative article from ZD Net.

Another site that is similar but a few steps back perhaps is yourminis. It creates widgets for your blog, website, and now…desktop! A very powerful rip, mix, & burn tool.

I have been a proponent of self-directed learning in my classes and often have students work on a personal learning environment (PLE). Their job just got easier. Zume allows you to drag and drop any webpage, application (a web-based api), images from other sites, videos, and pretty much anything on the web can be drag/dropped onto a Zude document page. You can also link any of your objects to any other objects creating a new type of rip, mix, burn.

This type of application is referred to as a “platform of personal expression (PPE)” by ZD Net and it further engages the interactive designer into envisioning a web that is a mixture of whatever technologies can deliver the goods the user needs. It changes our way of thinking about design, it stretches our imagination, it challenges us to get very close to all the technologies we can manage to understand and share as a community. It is one more reason why we need to develop a stronger community of practice as a department. We need to be networking to keep up with all that is happening.

1. Weblog: post information about what your VARK inventory indicated about your particular learning styles. Do you agree with the results?

2. O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 article is a classic description of a major transition that has evolved in the World Wide Web. After reading the article, describe what you found interesting and attracted to in the descriptions of how the web has changed. Then describe what you were not interested in? Share any experiences of Web 2.0 technologies that you feel you have participated in.

3. Visit this weblog and find the links to your classmates. Respond to at least two other people in the comments section, by sharing with them what you learned about them in their response to the Web 2.0 article.

Now that I have finally had the time to read Andy Clarke’s “Transitioning CSS: the fine art of web design”, I sense that I am discovering the next level of web design, one that challenges the way we currently think about the design process. His ideas and suggestions for a new set of “best practices” not only makes sense, it evolves the art and changes the emphasis from design to making meaning.

Clarke notes that “it has been a common working practice in both print and Web design for designers to lay out their pages using Greeking text (the familiar Lorem Ipsum)…Mock text doesn’t provide the meaning you want in order to begin immediately marking up you documents semantically”. The challenge is that we cannot possibly work with the specifics of well-formed semantic markup without the content that defines the meaning of what is to be marked-up. Read the rest of this entry »

A rich mining session in about an hour this afternoon brought some new resources you may enjoy tinkering with, and learning from.

From Stephen Downes OLDaily listserv is Pipes and Hypercard: Interactive vs Connected Media on Scott Wilsons blog, which introduced me to Yahoo Pipes!, a free online service that “lets you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor”. Pipes is an intriguing tool that allows you to do all sorts of things with RSS subscriptions, collecting, mashing, and much more. I think everyone using aggregators and blogs will have fun with all the possibilities!

Scott Wilson also referenced xfruits and reblog, both similar products to Pipes! All of these webapps are free to use of course! I am just getting into these products and they are exciting for the potential to generate new ways of working with rss based content. Another link from Scott’s blog takes you to an article on LinuxWorld about Ten Web 2.0 APIs you can really use. You have heard of Google Maps api and Flickr api but others may be new to you.

And if that isn’t enough to get your techie heads swirling, there is a new database product that may dazzle you, another api, at Dabbledb.com. It is a fee based service, but they offer a 30 day trial to learn about how you can implement it with your web pages, and they offer a free version that is intended for public access projects, which could offer some interesting development opportunities.

By the way, I am writing this post directly from Firefox with the Performancing firefox plugin (link follows) which is a neat tool that allows you to create a blog article while on a site simply by clicking an icon at the bottom of your Firefox page. When the article is complete it posts the article for you after you set up blog accounts you wish to post to and choose one. I have tried several stand-alone weblog editors and none is this simple and foolproof! Give it a try.

powered by performancing firefox

I have reviewed several new books about web design over the past few days and found some outstanding new titles that definitely contribute to strengthing your design skills. The most impressive of the bunch is Andy Clarke’s Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design. Andy is one of many talented Brittish designers and his book is refreshing and well designed. I think it is a classic with its challenges, new workflow concepts, and solid instructional material. In the opening chapter Andy describes the theme of the book when he states: <!–more–>
“Transcending CSS is more than a plea to use the latest, coolist CSS. It’s a quest to use the lessons you’re learning in CSS as a means to becoming the finest artist and designer you can be. Transcending CSS asks you to embrace the new rather than the old and to stimulate new ways to find inspiration, create more agile and appropriate workflows for web design, and encourage yourself to constantly learn more about both the design and the technical issues with which you work.”

I think this is a special book that all web designers will relate to and that will challenge and push each to learn more and to create and express stronger design competence.

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design, by Andy Clarke, Molly E. Holzschlag, 2007. New Riders, 2007. ISBN-10: 0-321-41097-1; ISBN-13: 978-0-321-41097-9.

Some other new titles:

HTML Mastery: Semantics, Standards, and Styling, by Paul Haine. Friends of Ed./Apress. 2006. ISBN 1-59059-765-6.

Covers new aspects of XHTML and CSS including microformats and upcoming features. Solid sections on well-formed coding (Semantics) and appropriate use of style capabilities. Recommended for serious coders beginning through advanced.

Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional, by Simon Collison. Apress (The Experts Voice in Web Development Series). 2006. $34.99. ISBN 1-59059-689-7.

Collison was a co-author with Andy Budd and CSS Mastery. This is a very useful and instructional book that offers new insight to CSS web development. It does indeed cover basics and advanced features and would make a good addition to your library.

Pro CSS Techniques, by Croft, Lloyd, and Rubin, Apress (The Experts Voice in Web Development Series), 2006. $39.99. ISBN 1-59059-732-x

A well crafted book with good detail of major issues in CSS and dealing with browser issues. A lot of solid, new material in this one. Definitely a resource for advanced coders.

CSS Web Site Design: Hands On Training, by Eric Meyer. lynda.com/Peachpit, 2007. $49.99. ISBN 0-321-29391-6.

Clearly targeted as a CSS 101 audience to establish a core competency. While I am not a fan of Lynda Weinman’s publishing empire, Eric Meyer is the guru of CSS and this looks like a solid training style book with accompanying CDROM for all the exercises.

CSS: The Definitive Guide, third edition, by Eric Meyer. O’Reilly Media, Inc. 2007. $44.99. ISBN 10 0-596-52733-0.

An updated version which covers up to April 2006 CSS 2.1 standard. This is the ever present reference of references of CSS. Not easy reading, but everything you ever wanted to know. A Meyer’s classic.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Intermediate Web Scripting, a course that focuses on deepening skills in CSS design, working on a portfolio quality project, and learning about how to learn. This is a second level web design course which expects that students will have experience with XHTML and CSS in the Intro to Web Scripting course, as well as User Centered Design. Students will be involved in the integration of web technologies as they work with weblogs and other social software products for communication and collaboration in their learning process.