Course Ideas: September 2010

• Web 200: The Anatomy of a Page Load
  • The Anatomy of a Page Load is about layers and abstraction. The average internet user has no idea of the number of layers involved in a page load. We'll cover things like HTTP, DNS, caching, networks, TCP/IP, proxies, routing, packets, encryption, sessions, cookies, and lots more. When you finish the course, you'll be able to recite exactly what happens when you request a web page in your browser.
• HTML5
  • The course is build around a theme/story to create a website for a specific purpose. Participants will learn the application of HTML5, CSS3 (and JavaScript) to present different forms of content (theme/story related) on a website.
• Web Development 101
  • An introduction to developing basic websites to web standards. This course will be suitable for beginners who wish to learn how to make static websites with (x)HTML and CSS. This course will also be suitable for developers who have previously used WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver and who wish to learn how to a make a website by hand.
• Principles of Project Management
  • This is an introductory course in project management based on PMI's Guide to the Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK) as it is applied to software projects.

• Reading Code
  • The Reading Code course will remind us that there is no magic-- only logic. We will dive into the mini universes of open source projects and learn techniques for getting oriented, debugging, and simply getting comfortable reading code.
• Semantic Markup
  • Approach on how you would layout your code so that you are creating code in best practice which leads onto other areas of web design and development
• Organic SEO Basics
  • Approach on how you would create web pages with SEO in mind.
• What is PHP
  • When you only know HTML it's hard to understand what PHP actually is.
  • This course provides the basic information on what PHP is and what it can do.
  • We will cover basic programming and reference material to more advanced PHP.
  • How to use the PHP manual.
    
• Drupal Basics
  • Basic installation of Drupal Content Management System (CMS).
  • Setup a website with Drupal.
  • Basic concepts of Drupal and terminology.
  • Deployment and further things to do.
• Building Social Web Applications with Drupal
  • Open Hippel is an open source project I started back in April, 2010. It's basically a Social Web App that allows anyone to form groups around their interests. It'll have tools to help people make decisions as a group, set criteria and milestones, and also have personal profile and history so people with skills can be connected with people needed those skills.
• Beginning Webservices with Python
  
  • The course will center on using python and associated technologies to explore how HTTP and HTML works. Only the basics will be covered, but this should be enough to point newcomers with the predisposition towards making and debugging more complex sites.
    
• Python Programming
  
  • Novice and intermediate programmers can benefit by becoming involved in the Python community. This course will focus on Python 3 using the book(s) A Byte of Python, Python for Informatics, and/or Dive Into Python 3.
    
• Designers Tackling The Web
  • Learn the basic steps of how to take gorgeous visual designs and translate them onto the web. The technical details of building a webpage or web application will be covered from HTML, CSS, FTP, etc.
• Introduction to System Administration
  • A primer on system administration to give Webcrafters the basic skills to test, deploy, and troubleshoot websites on cloud or private hosting.
• Web Accessibility
  • An introduction to accessibility: in Europe, about 10% of the population has some disability, in the US even more. Older people are more likely to acquire a disability, and the demographics show an aging population. You can't afford to exclude this group of users, and I hope you want to break down barriers and include all people on the web as much as I want.
• Designing for Education: How to optimize the user experience.
  • Instructional Design is a field of study that's directly related to cognitive and behavioral sciences. Its main objective is to maximize the experience of teaching and learning on special environments. This course is focused on VLE (Virtual Learning Environments). Many of the VLEs we have today are just file storage systems or discussion boards. Our mission then is to build interfaces, based on Ergonomics and Aesthetics concepts, that are easy to use, visually attractive and that motivate the users (not only students, but teachers as well) to participate on an active manner, not a passive one.
• Extension Development
  • The is a research work, which will expose registered students to extension development.
  • It will present a reference architecture for web browsers, though practical works will be based on the Mozilla Framework.
  • Students will be involved in a number of assignments, such as UI (User Interface) enhancement, localization and protocol integration.
• An interactive introduction to programming through visual media
  • Can you learn the fundamentals of programming with art, fun, and games? We'll show you how using Processing.js, an open-Web version of the visually-oriented programming language. By the end of this class, you'll be building interactive animations and games on the web, and sharing them with the world. Our approach is highly collaborative, so we'd encourage you to take this course with a friend or two.

• Scripting 101
  • As an web developer must be aware of few server side scripting and indeed for the free and openness, the shell scripting. In this course one would learn the fundamentals of most of the scripting languages mainly focusing on bash, perl, php and python. From basic level to the advance levels of CLI programming would be covered in this course.

Portuguese Courses in Brazil/Cursos em português

• Design para a Educação: Como otimizar a experiência de usuário
  • O design instrucional é um campo de estudo que está diretamente relacionado às ciências cognitivas e comportamentais. O principal objetivo é maximizar a experiência de ensino-aprendizagem em ambientes especiais. Este curso tem foco em AVAs (ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem). Muitos dos AVAs que temos hoje são apenas sistemas de armazenamento de arquivos ou listas de discussão. Nossa missão então é desenvolver interfaces, baseadas em conceitos de Ergonomia e Estética, que são fáceis de usar, visualmente atrativas e que motivam os usuários (não apenas estudantes, mas professores também) a participar de uma maneira ativa, e não passiva.

• Por favor, propor alguns cursos :)!