Friday July 17, 2009

InterAct

Written by Leslie Jensen-Inman

Over the past 2 years there have been great strides made towards improving web education. In March 2009, at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), The Web Standards Project Education Task Force (WaSP EduTF) released InterAct.

“InterAct is a living, open curriculum based upon web standards and best practices, designed to teach students the skills of the web professional.”

I have been fortunate to be a member of WaSP EduTF and have had the opportunity to work with very talented web professionals. The range of skill-sets, job positions, and personalities make the group a joy to work with. What continues to amaze me is this team’s commitment to helping integrate best practices and standards into the classroom. 

As an educator, I am thrilled that a resource like InterAct is available. Currently, there are 11 courses released as part of the InterAct curriculum and 14 more courses are in production, due for a March 2010 release. These courses fall into six learning tracks:

• Foundations
• Front-end Development
• Design
• User science
• Server-side Development, and
• Professional Practices

Every web professional I meet has a wish list of topics they want taught in the classroom. InterAct is a living curriculum; turn your wish list into classroom materials and {contribute} {http://interact.webstandards.org/contribute/}. It’s a great way for educators and industry to connect to help provide resources for web educators, while granting web professionals the opportunity to improve web education.