Ed Directions North

The Web Directions North descends upon Denver this upcoming February. As usual, it looks to be filled with some of the best people in the field covering the latest and greatest in Web design and development. (Oh, yeah, and the ski trip!)

Also, this year is something new: a new, one- day workshop geared for those who teach Web design and development for others and want to learn from the very best called Ed Directions North.

So, if you are an educator in this field finding yourself challenged by keeping up with latest technologies and how to best relay them to your students, you might want to check this out. 

Below is information about the workshop from the Web Directions North site:

Developing curricula and training for the next generation of web designers and developers often feels like shooting at a moving target. Best practices are constantly evolving, and difficult to keep track of, while standards emerge and are refined.

As a consequence, all too often, education and training does not adequately prepare students for the needs of industry by equipping them with the proper foundational knowledge of current best practices and standards.

Ed Directions, a highly focussed, in depth whole day symposium aims to address this challenge, by helping teachers, trainers, course and curriculum developers, and others in the education field keep abreast with the latest developments in standards and best practice, and to develop and deliver the best possible curricula and courses. 

Who is the day for?

If you are involved in developing or delivering education for web designers and developers, whether in the secondary, post secondary, vocational or the commercial sector, this day is for you. As this is not a day for learning the technologies and techniques themselves, a general knowledge of technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS, and subject areas such as Accessibility will be assumed. There will however be no requirement to put this knowledge into practical application on the day.

What will you cover?

Divided into 4 sessions, each session will cover one significant area of web design and development and feature:

• a renowned domain expert giving an overview of current best practice, standards, as well as commonly used and taught, but outmoded, technologies and techniques
• experts in the education sector, covering the resources available (commercial, free, and open) to develop curricula and training courses
• experienced teachers and trainers with a track record of success in developing and delivering training in this area, sharing their real world experience
• interactive sessions to put these all this knowledge into practice, and share experiences with professionals facing the same challenges as you

The day is divided into the following four sessions

• Session 1: HTML semantic markup and web content technologies
• Session 2: Cascading style sheets and web presentation
• Session 3: JavaScript and Ajax
• Session 4: Accessibility and usability

Ed Directions North is facilitated by Chris Mills, Steph Troeth, Aarron Walter, and Bill Cullifer and feature domain experts such as Dave Shea (CSS), Derek Featherstone (Accessibility/Usability), and Christian Heilmann (Ajax/Javascript).

Education experts include Jeffrey Brown from Damascus High School, Glenda Sims from UT, and Leslie Jensen-Inman from the University of Tennessee.