Mark DuBois Weblog

We are now in the second week of the semester. I have a challenge for students in my CMWEB classes. I put together a brief slideshow (using PowerPoint and Adobe Captivate) to include audio and transitions. This information came mostly from a Time Magazine article I read over the weekend (dealing with YouTube). Ok, it took me roughly 2 hours to do a little research, prepare the PowerPoint slides, import the slides into Captivate, select the audio (I have an account with Soundzabound and this audio is ok to use on the WWW). Your challenge, should you decide to accept it is to do something similar in HTML5. Keep track of your hours to duplicate this as well. You can use any framework, CSS, JS, and new elements (like <canvas>) that you want. The resulting web page needs to include audio which plays throughout (with the ability to turn it on or off). The text needs to show some sort of transition effect (like the fade in this example). Read more »

Due to some last minute scheduling issues this semester, I almost had to have an open lab in a room with no removable hard drives and the computers locked down to the point where nothing could be installed. Yep, this would make teaching advanced web technologies a bit dicey. As I was scrambling to find other rooms, I was also working on “Plan B.” This would have involved the use of a web based IDE (Integrated Development Environment). As long as students had access to a browser (and could also bring a USB drive), this could have been a workable solution. Although the room issue did get resolved, I thought it might be helpful to others to learn a bit about what I discovered. Hence this post. Read more »

We are about to start the Spring, 2012 semester where I teach. Our college [Illinois Central College] has been recognized as a Web Professional Academy since 2006 (when the Web Professional Program began). Before we start the semester, I though I would reflect on what it means to me to be a web professional. I look forward to your comments (please place them below). Note that I must approve all comments due to the vast amount of spam comments received. Read more »