Teaching and Learning about Web Design and Development
“We only think when we are confronted with a problem” – John Dewey
Teaching and developing curriculum is a really important part of what I do. Nothing forces you to learn something so thoroughly as when you have to teach it to someone else.
Sometimes I work for days preparing materials for a single class. Developing curriculum and sharing it with students is an incredibly rewarding experience.
I use Moodle to manage all my course information and curriculum content over at http://www.meadpoint.net/learn. However, here on MeadDesign, I will continue to post some of my favorite lessons and materials. I really consider these projects and materials to be among my best portfolio pieces. If you have any questions or would like some private tutoring, please contact me.
Areas of Instruction
Languages
xhtml/html5, css/css3, JavaScript/jQuery, PHP/MySQL, Actionscript 3
Design
Web Design, Interface Design, Interaction Design, Information Design, Content Strategy
Platforms
WordPress, Webvanta, Drupal, Joomla, Moodle
Introduction
To the left are just a few of the lessons I have put together and shared with students. You will notice that they are organized a little differently from sites that do web development tutorials of various sorts.
My lessons make use of Google presentations, which include a lot of screen shots, descriptions of what we are doing and why, and step by step instructions. They are a lot more detailed than much of what you will find around the web. Also, I try to give context to the lessons and explain why it is better to do something one way as opposed to the other (in my opinion).
A note about best practices: I try to make use of best practices where ever possible, but there are places where I sacrifice best practices to keep the lesson simple or to make a point. In those cases I will make note of the discrepancies in the presentations. However, best practices are always evolving, particularly in the web development field. If you feel I have made an error, please leave a comment or contact me and I will see if I think it is worth updating.
I will rotate new lessons in from time to time. I literally have dozens of these, if not hundreds at this point. I hope you find them useful.
- Bill Mead
Lessons
Form Validation Part 1
Ok, there is nothing more boring than forms. But it is really important for us as web designers and developers to know how to work with them effectively.
Form Validation Part 2
Part 2 of our form validation series of lessons brings us into jQuery. This is the next logical step in understanding form validation.
Form Validation Part 3
Part 3 of our form validation series gets into using AJAX to submit form data without having to refresh the page. A pretty good trick in some situations.