A thank you to the web development community

Interesting article on community from +Chris Coyier and the perspective of web development community. At Front End Conference in 2014, Alex Horne and I gave a presentation on web community and web education. I think this article adds a lot to that conversation.

It is now over a year since that talk and I find that many of my original thoughts on the convergence of community and education in the web sphere are still the same. I know that I, as an educator, rely heavily on the web community to help me successfully teach my students about designing and developing websites. I especially look towards the online web community to stay informed about where the industry is moving and how best to prepare tomorrow’s developers.  Continue…

@ClemsonGC grads take note- these are great advice points even if you land in a different industry. Article written by Christine Alexander.

Know that we will be so sad to not see you around Godfrey (every day!) but also know that we are very excited for the next chapter of your lives! We know you will do great things and we hope every once in a while you shout them out on social media or drop us an email or come back to campus for the Godfrey Tailgate.

All the best to each of you!

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4 Tips for New Grads Entering the Print Industry
A recent graduate venturing into the printing industry might be a little concerned. First there’s the whole “print is dying” phenomena being pushed by the digital world. It’s not, I assure you. Pri…

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To Dreamweaver or not to Dreamweaver, that is the question

Having attended several conferences this past summer, I wanted to write a post to answer one of the questions I hear not only from students, but also from web development teachers as well. So often when I am giving a presentation on teaching web development, I get asked “Why shouldn’t we use Dreamweaver?”

It is a very legitimate question, especially as more and more schools are getting Creative Cloud licensing for their faculty and students. So, if all your students already have Dreamweaver installed and they are used to how Adobe lays out their workspace, why wouldn’t I recommend Dreamweaver as the best way to teach coding? Let’s start with the simplest and in my opinion most important answer:

I can’t name a single developer using Dreamweaver to code!

Continue…

Introverts in the extroverted world of networking. Image from: http://nccuinternational.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/23-signs-youre-secretly-an-introvert/

Networking is a vital part of a college students’ career, but the truth is, it doesn’t come naturally for many people, especially if you are more of an introvert. Even as a professor at Clemson, extroversion can be a really helpful trait. We need to prepare to speak at conferences, meet potential employers at Intern-Employer Day, hosting events for the department, greeting potential students and their families as they tour Godfrey and consider whether Graphic Communciations is the right major for them at Clemson University.

Most people who’ve met me may not think I am an introvert at all, but I certainly relate with how this article starts. Even thinking about a room full of people I don’t know makes me pause. Over time I’ve learned to trick myself into enjoying the challenge and I think many students who feel nervous about IE Day and interviews, and conferences might can benefit from the same tricks. Continue…

There is something amazing about the perfectly composed commencement address. I am not sure that everyone is listening at a large graduation, but it is a moment to stop and reflect on what graduates have accomplished and what we, as faculty, hope they will accomplish in the future. Naval Admiral William H. McRaven returned to his alma mater last week and spoke to the graduates with lessons he learned from his basic SEAL training.Here’s his amazing Commencement Address at University of Texas at Austin 2014 from Business Insider.

So many nuggets can be pulled out of McRaven’s commencement address, so I highly recommend that you click on the link and read it through, but these were some of my favorite points. All of which apply no matter what career path you may take or really what stage of life you happen to be in today.

#1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

#2. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle. Continue…

I admit that I think a lot about the effectiveness of teaching. Probably because I am both a student in my PhD program and a lecturer for Clemson University, this is a topic I think about way more often than I probably should. And I believe that it is necessary and prudent for all instructors to explore the change in education and how it can or should effect decisions they make within their classroom.

No longer do universities hold the key to information, but physical classes and even online classes (to some extent) do have the asset of quality, timely feedback and relationship with experts in their field. How will this affect change in education as we currently know it?

As the landscape of higher education opportunities change, with that be enough to warrant the cost of physical campuses and four-year degrees?

I think, for me, what it always comes back to is: how can I provide something of value to my students? What does the time I spend in face-to-face labs and lectures add to their knowledge base and life experiences?

If the answer is nothing or something that is easily forgettable at the end of the semester, then I am not doing my job well. And it is time to make changes to the course to help accomplish those goals. Positive change in education is not just timely, it is necessary.

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AdobeTV creates a wonderful collection of Photoshop tutorials for beginners and experts alike that cover all the different software found in Adobe Creative Cloud and used for your courses in ClemsonGC. This particular photoshop tutorial is one I ran across based on a recent student’s question on how to masking images into text. I hope that you find the information useful for your current and future Photoshop projects #GC3400.

Reshared post from +Adobe Photoshop

There are many ways to show a photograph within type or graphics. In this tutorial, Julieanne Kost uses groups and clipping masks:

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Digital Photography School posts great content for beginning and advanced photographers throughout the year. On this infographic, three key lessons are visualized to help make sense of the manual photography settings on your new DSLR camera. By exploring depth of field, focal length, and shutter speed, the poster helps beginning students wrap their brain around these key settings of manual photography and how they affect your final image.

Very useful chart for #gc3400

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3 Key Lessons in Photography For Beginners – Digital Photography School
There’s so much to learn when it comes to photography but at the heart of it there are some key lessons to get your head around. Here are 3 lessons for new photographers which have been visualised in a handy cheat sheet.. Source: Digital Camera World Learn More About These Key Lessons in Photography Shutter …

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