There are so many new disciplines web professionals need to be know about, if not specizlized in, that weren’t around ten or even five years ago.
It’s not always easy to keep on the latest and greatest in web and mobile tips, tricks and techniques.
Sometimes it’s downright difficult.
If it’s hard to keep up with the changes as professionals, so it must be even more so for our teachers of the craft.
For the past several years, a group of dedicated and talented volunteers have been working to help fix that.
Our Education Task Force has developed a world-class curriculum – we’re talking about tools for teaching.
Materials such as syllabii, quiz questions, recommended readings, and more aid in creating web professionals that are ready for the job market that so desperately needs young, competent web builders.
With such a strident resource, professors, educators to teach standards-based web design and development in their own classrooms.
Available on our web site, Web Standards Project InterACT Curriculum have found their way into some forward-thinking classrooms all over the world.
And it’s totally free.
In addition, the Education Task Force published a textbook based off the curriculum titled InterACT with Web Standards.
This web standards textbook is a available from Peachpit, which has published classics such as Jeffrey Zeldman and Ethan Marcotte’s Designing with Web Standards and Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag’s The Zen of CSS Design.
Today, I’m happy to announce that the curriculum reaches even more people than ever before.
The InterACT Curriculum developed through Web Standards Educational Task Force has been licensed to W3C.
Through their resources and network, the curriculum will be used to teach companies and organizations, large and super-large, about standards-based education.
And it only seems appropriate that InterACT finds yet another home that is the W3C.
The Educational Task Force’s InterACT was one of the primary catalytics that led to the formation of the Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA) under the W3C.
To continue to expand the curriculum, the Education Task Force needs your help.
You don’t need to be a self-proclaimed web guru or a mobile ninja to help.
We people that specialize in all facets of web and mobile design and development that includes copywriters, content strategists, user experts, project managers, and more.
There’s room for everyone and, frankly, it has been and will continue to be people like yourself reading this message right now that will make world-caliber educational material.
Contribute to a curriculum that gets in the hands of tomorrow’s builders today.
Fill out the contribution form or reach out to EduTF leaders, Glenda Sims and Mark DuBois to ask how you can get more involved.
]]>Is W3C saying that CSS3 is part of the HTML5 specification?
No. However, many HTML5 Web sites and applications do take advantage of CSS3 for styling and presentation.
This is a good start, but there is still a lot to be done. The main HTML5 logo page still includes non-HTML5 (or event HTML5 web app-related) technologies such as CSS3, SVG, etc. And the Badge Builder still assembles a badge that makes these technologies appear subordinate to HTML5 as opposed to framing them as complementary, but distinct entities. We hope the FAQ change is not the end of their efforts to fix the potential confusion they have caused and that they will continue putting things right over coming days.
As you probably heard, the WHATWG has decided to drop the “5” from their work on the HTML language:
…we realised that the demand for new features in HTML remained high, and so we would have to continue maintaining HTML and adding features to it before we could call “HTML5″ complete, and as a result we moved to a new development model, where the technology is not versioned and instead we just have a living document that defines the technology as it evolves.
At first blush, many of us were a little distraught by this decision because we thought the W3C might decide to follow suit, but after thinking on it a bit, the decision makes sense: the WHATWG can work on the HTML markup language in a fluid way and the W3C can take snapshots of that work and christen it with a version number for reference purposes.
Some might argue that version numbers are meaningless on the ever-evolving web, but they do help us establish mile-markers or guideposts which aid in both education and accountability. Sure, both versions 4 and 5 of HTML are still HTML, but, as the saying goes, you can’t build on shifting sands. It’s frustrating to teach from an ever-changing spec. The same goes for authoring to one. Some manner of stability is necessary so you know what is “true” now (or at least at some point in time), even if those circumstances may change in six months or six years. Not having a version number will make it really hard to educate people about the current set of new HTML features, and how they differ from the old version (which rather contradicts the purpose of the HTML5 logo in the first place).
Not that there was really a question, but we stand by our sentiment that the final (as in W3C) version of HTML5 should continue having a version number while the version-less WHATWG version is used for continuing development.
]]>But wait, things are not quite right. If you delve deeper you’ll see that, included in their definition of the technology that comprises HTML5, is CSS3, WOFF, SVG, and a few other cuckoos in the HTML5 nest. If you look at the HTML5 Logo FAQ, you’ll find the following:
The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others.
This really isn’t good—I appreciate that it is good to have an umbrella term for a group of related technologies and techniques that would otherwise be difficult to talk about in conversation. “Ajax” and “Web 2.0” serve that purpose well. And it is ok to talk about closely-related specs such as Geolocation and Web Sockets as being under the HTML5 umbrella, as long as you clarify it somewhere (you can find a good example in Get familiar with HTML5!). But this is different—HTML5 and CSS3, for example, are two distinctly different technologies, and should not be confused with one another. To do so will impede learning and cause problems with development, documentation, and all manner of other things.
You could perhaps forgive marketers for getting it confused, but then again their confusion is not so critical as long as their end product looks and works great, and they have a web developer behind them to put them right at critical points. But I have talked to many web developers that are confused, and honestly think that CSS3 and SVG are part of HTML5.
There has understandably been some bad feeling about this in the web community. Jeremy Keith put it nicely in Badge of Shame
, and Bruce Lawson also gave a good view in On the HTML5 logo, as well as providing a good rant to put things straight: HTML5 != CSS3. At Opera, my colleagues and I are constantly reiterating a more accurate definition of HTML5 to help overcome such confusion, and many allies at other browser vendors are doing the same.
But standing against the W3C is not the way to solve this either. In light of this, we at the WaSP are sending an open letter to folks at the W3C, urging them to fix this oversight. The letter is thus:
]]>Dear W3C,
We are writing to address a major concern we at WaSP (and in the web professional community in general) have with the newly-unveiled HTML5 brand. While we are excited that the W3C is doing so much to promote new technologies being developed, we are incredibly concerned that using “HTML5” as the umbrella for these technologies does more harm than good.
“HTML5,” as a term, has become a bit of a beast and is already presenting problems:
First, you’ve got HTML5 “the spec” which isn’t just HTML markup anymore, but includes specifications for everything from local databases to web workers. Explaining what we mean when we talk about “HTML5” requires use of modifying phrases, as in “HTML5 the markup language” or “HTML5 geolocation”.
Then Apple and Google began promoting the use of “HTML5” as as a catch-all term for marketing their browser advancements, much as Microsoft and Netscape (and journalists) had used “DHTML” in the past. The term became less meaningful because it was being used to cover more ground and, consequently, it made communications between developers and clients more difficult because both sides did not have the same understanding of what HTML5 meant.
Now the W3C has come out and essentially condoned the branding of everything from CSS to actual HTML5 to WOFF as “HTML5”. We can’t imagine a single action that will cause more confusion than this misguided decision (and the W3C has produced some pretty impenetrable specs in its time). Our own Jeremy Keith summed it up perfectly when he said
What we have here is a deliberate attempt to further blur the lines between separate technologies that have already become intertwingled in media reports.
We need for the W3C, as a standards body, to understand the importance of clarity with regard to the term “HTML5”. Without being able to draw clear distinctions between technologies, clear communication about those technologies becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible. As an organization of web professionals promoting the inclusion of web standards in the education of future web professionals and the adoption of web standards among practicing professionals, we are deeply concerned that your decision will make our job even harder.
So, when push comes to shove, what do we want you to change? Well, we think a good place to start is backing away from the use of “HTML5” as a catch-all term. If you feel you need a catch-all term, come up with something else, but as Jeremy also said
We [developers] never needed a term to refer to “XHTML 1.0 plus CSS2.1” or “HTML4.01 plus JavaScript” or “any combination of front-end technologies.” Why this sudden all-conquering need for a term that covers so many different technologies as to be completely meaningless?
With a new moniker for the umbrella of modern web technologies, the blurred distinction between the diverse languages and systems that comprise it will evaporate and we won’t have to worry (as much) about the potential for miscommunication. Hey, it will even give you a chance to create another logo.
Signed,
The Web Standards Project
Thanks to the efforts of a handful of WaSP members and a cadre of other web professionals, we’re making great progress. We’ve just wrapped up the material organization phase and are beginning to work on drafting the document, which we hope to have out before the end of the year. We’re also in the process of putting together a website to house “living” versions of the materials we produce and assist with the promotion and distribution of this document and any others we generate in the future.
We’ll post further announcements on this project as we get closer to the launch date.
]]>From my seat on the sidelines of the book project I found it to be one of those rare gem that provides insight from a variety of working professionals on the topics they know best — from content creation to markup to accessibility — all along the way teaching the fundamentals and craft that goes into building successful web sites. While the middle third of the book covers page building with HTML and CSS it is surrounded by discussion of topics from strategy to marketing to accessibility to something so many technical books leave off — how to use the web to keep learning about the web as it evolves.
That is the core of why I’m loving seeing the work the authors have done with this book and with the WaSP InterACT Curriculum. Education, be it in higher education settings, professional and business settings or those self educating, in our fast moving and always changing field has to cover these fundamentals and core principles as much as it is about current coding techniques or the current crop of browsers or devices. The authors, many of whom have been in the business for a decade or more, have built up knowledge of these fundamentals and work hard to pass them onto the reader.
Information about InterAct with Web Standards and its authors is available on the book’s companion website. It is worth noting that 25% of author proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the Open Web Education Alliance.
This Friday, June 11, many of the authors are participating in an online book launch event and conference. Though it is sold out, if you sign up for the waiting list you’ll be informed when tapings if the event are available.
Finally, you can read up on and support the curriculum initiatives at the WaSP InterACT Curriculum, support the Open Web Education Alliance win a grant with your vote on Drumbeat, or check out the Opera Web Standards Curriculum.
]]>As is true of all InterACT courses, these six new courses contain competencies (the stuff students need to master in order to pass the class), assignments with grading rubrics, exam questions, recommended texts and readings, and technologies required to teach the course.
Though we’ve spent hundreds of hours developing these courses, we know the hardest work is still ahead. We need your help to get these courses into high schools, and colleges around the world. If you are an educator, use these courses (they are free and licensed under Creative Commons). If you are a student, tell your teachers about InterACT (gold star for you!). If you are an industry pro, connect with a local school to let them know about InterACT, or better yet, give a short presentation on web standards in the real world. Regardless of your connection to web education, you can help move the cause forward with a tweet, a blog post, or a conversation with a colleague.
These six courses are just a piece of what InterACT is working on. Stay tuned.
]]>The truth is that this organization is evolving. For the last two years, a large amount of our focus has been placed on education, realized in our creation of the InterAct curriculum framework and the birth of the Open Web Education Alliance. With the lion’s share of our talent and energy devoted to these efforts, things have been noticeably quiet on this blog, but that’s not an excuse…we can and should be doing more to promote the understanding and use of web standards. After all that’s what we were formed to do.
For the last two or three years, WaSP’s relevance has definitely diminished. With a few exceptions, browsers are doing a darn good job of promoting standards. Techniques we championed, such as Unobtrusive JavaScript and Progressive Enhancement, have become engrained in the methodology of many great web agencies and in-house web teams. In many ways, it seems WaSP has won the war for web standards, but has it really? There are still a ton of small web companies and small to mid-sized businesses building websites with little or no regard for cross-browser /cross-device compatibility. Inaccessible sites and applications, especially in this age of Ajax, seem to pop up every few seconds.
These projects have been put together by web designers and developers we’ve never reached and, for the last few years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to change that. Sure, our education effort is a logical means of teaching the next generation of web designers and developers to do things the Right Way™, but what of the practicing professionals who either have not been exposed to web standards or have been reluctant to upgrade their skill set? How do we reach them?
One way we hope to move this group in the right direction is by doing an end-run around them in reaching out to small businesses.
Small businesses drive our national economies and are responsible for millions of websites worldwide. Of course, most small businesses don’t know (or even want to know) about the technical aspects of web standards, but they do want to know what will save them money and help them run their businesses more efficiently.
As the first project in our small business outreach effort, WaSP will be developing a resource to be used when interviewing individuals and teams to do web work. The focus of this effort will be a series of questions that, when asked of applicants, will help a small business determine whether or not they have the skills necessary to build a modern website. Each question be coupled with background on the associated topic that outlines why it is important and tips for determining how well the question was answered.
Our goals for this project are two-fold:
In order to make this project a success, we need your help. Whether you are interested in helping us collect and organize the content or are keen to promote the resource once it’s complete, we want you to be involved. If you can lend a hand, please say so in a comment on this message and I will be in touch at the beginning of next week.
]]>Many organizations like Opera, Adobe, Yahoo, WOW, and WaSP InterAct have been diligently working to develop curricula and outreach programs to help schools better prepare their students for a career on the Web. OWEA will bring many education initiatives together in a broad collaborative.
“ The mission of the Open Web Education Alliance Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to help enhance and standardize the architecture of the World Wide Web by facilitating the highest quality standards and best practice based education for future generations of Web professionals through such activities as:
- fostering open communication channels for knowledge transfer
- curriculum sharing between corporate entities, educational institutions, Web professionals, and students ”
- The Open Web Education Alliance Charter
OWEA’s origins can be traced back to Web Directions North in Denver in February, where WaSP emeritus and CSS Samuri John Allsopp brought together educators, industry experts, and representatives of the W3C to explore ways of uniting the various education efforts already underway. Four months later, OWEA has transformed from a collection of ideas at a meeting to a W3C incubator group. The Web Standards Project has a strong representation in OWEA, and will be contributing content from InterAct to the initiative.
This is a huge step towards improving web education! Want to stay informed? Subscribe to the WaSP InterAct Twitter feed.
]]>It’s a huge project and we’re looking for as many volunteers as possible. If you’d like to help translate or help with localizing content for your local education system email the ILG leads and we’ll put you in touch with other volunteers.
Full details abut how to get involved can be found in the Internationalizing and Translating InterAct forum.
Thank you to everyone who’s involved so far!
]]>hasLayoutobject fallbackslegend elementsattr())quotes propertystyle attribute via the DOMThis browser is a giant leap forward for standards support at Microsoft, but reviews so far seem mixed. What do you think?
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