Internet Accessibility / Usability Resources A-E

See also: Internet Accessibility / Usability Resources F-W


Toward Web Development Education

Whatever your speciality in technical communication, Web development education can affect you in some way. The authoring tools you use will change. New areas like mobile technology will provide new career opportunities as services and products move from your desktop to your browser to your mobile phone to … who knows where?

There is a corner of W3C that is dedicated to maintaining some method to this madness. It's the Open Web Education Alliance Incubator Group (OWEA XG) wiki. The OWEA has a charter, which states (in part)

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 and curriculum sharing between corporate entities, educational institutions, Web professionals, and students.

Doesn't "open communication channels for knowledge transfer" just melt your technical communicator heart?

Whatever your interest in this endeavor, the list of current curricula for open Web education is a great place for you to start. Send your peers and especially your developer colleagues to that list of curricula.

By the way, those curricula also provide great opportunities for involvement, if you feel so inclined. WaSP Interact Curriculum  Updated, born at SXSW Interactive in April 2009, is one very exciting place to consider joining. This "living, open curriculum based upon web standards and best practices, designed to teach students the skills of the web professional" is a good place to start sharing your own knowledge – or building your skills.

You can bookmark these links for future reference, but you can also follow WaSP Interact on Twitter for the latest news on this topic.

Hot off the press (or Twitter, to be precise): Read Sitepoint's recent interview with Chris David Mills on the topic of Web education and curricula. It's also a nice introduction to Web development education.