Teaching Technology at DevTO - July 28 2014

Teaching TechShanta R. Nathwani, Sheridan College

Teaching Tech - Introduction

The purpose of this talk is to inform the dev community about how and what we teach our students. This is a two way conversation. We wish to gather information from the community as to whether or not we are teaching the right stuff.

Shanta R. Nathwani 3

About Me

• Instructor, Sheridan College• Web Design and Capstone

Project• Independent IT and Social

Media Consultant• Clients include NPOs, Real

Estate, Software Development, Financial and Political Sectors

• Bachelor of Commerce in Info Tech Mgmt., Ryerson University

7/25/2014

About Our Students

• Joint program with University of Toronto at Mississauga: Institute of Culture, Communication, Information and Technology and Sheridan College• Training them to be

translators, not necessarily the developers

What Do We Teach Them?

At Sheridan:

• Principles of Design

• Web Design

• Graphic Design

• Game Design

• Photography and Video

At UTM:

• Business

• Technical

CCIT Web Design At Sheridan College - Intro

•Intro: •The Culture of the Internet and how it all fits together•HTML & CSS•Assumes no prior knowledge of coding

CCIT Web Design At Sheridan College - Intermediate

•Intermediate:•WordPress•Information Architecture•Given themes and expected to fix them (Damage Control)•Take a given theme and a piece of public domain literature and make it a website (Document Machine)

CCIT Web Design At Sheridan College - Advanced

•Advanced:•This semester, we are teaching them widgets, themes and plugins in WordPress•Networking•Changes every time!•Last year, we put them with real clients. Now, it’s a new course (Capstone)

We Adapt – CCT460: Advanced Web Design

• Winter, 2013• Paired groups with real clients

• Created a new course (Capstone): CCT406 – Launches in the Winter of 2015

• Summer, 2013• Mobile App design

• Real world examples in their own life

• Winter, 2014• More coding

• Introduction to GitHub (mandatory for the course)

• Summer, 2014• More WordPress!

Challenges

•Why come to us when you can code on your own?•We teach them how to learn•External resources (GitHub, WordPress Codex, W3Schools, etc.)

•As much as we can adapt, the amount of time that it takes to turn it around is not fast enough. i.e., Two years from idea to running the course.•Receive an accredited degree and certificate.

Learning and Teaching Has Changed

•Have attended and spoken at three WordCamps this year so far. Scheduled at another two and submitting for another two. (#WordCampTour14)

•Exposure of the “experts” draws students to the institutions. Marketing function

•Brings most up to date knowledge back to the students and learning from the community.

Thank you!Questions? Thoughts?