To educate, inform, inspire

2014 National Web Design Contest – part 2

July 9, 2014 - Web - by Mark - No Comments

As I mentioned last week, we held our annual national web design contest in Kansas City in late June. We had competitions for both high school students and post-secondary students. This year, we had representatives from 35 states. All had to win first place in their state competition to participate […]

2014 National Web Design Contest

July 2, 2014 - Technology , Web - by Mark - No Comments

I had the great honor of supervising our WebProfessionals.org national web design contest in Kansas City (June 24-27, 2014). We held separate contests for high schools and post-secondary schools. This year, we had representatives from a total of 35 states. Congratulations to the winners and to all who participated. Everyone […]

CSS Shack

June 25, 2014 - Technology , Web - by Mark - No Comments

I recently became aware of the CSS Shack project and thought it might be useful for readers of this blog. As I understand it, CSS Shack is available both as a desktop application (for Windows and Linux) and as a Chrome browser extension. I decided to focus on the latter […]

Adobe Captivate 8 First Look

June 18, 2014 - Adobe , Learning , Web - by Mark - 4 Comments

I have been using Adobe Captivate for a number of years (and have come to rely on it more and more in the past couple of releases). I recently obtained a copy of Captivate 8 (the latest version). I thought it would be appropriate to take a few moments and […]

Hack.me Site

June 11, 2014 - Security , Web - by Mark - 2 Comments

The CMWEB 270 class I teach covers many of the fundamentals of ethical hacking. Of course, one of the main problems one encounters when teaching ethical hacking is providing links to vulnerable websites. Yes, one can easily create a vulnerable site. However, many hosting providers don’t like you to post […]

Adobe MUSE for Educators

June 4, 2014 - Adobe , Web - by Mark - No Comments

I had the privilege of providing two sessions on Adobe MUSE as part of the Adobe Apps for Educators series which ends in July. These recordings were made on June 4, 2014. Instead of a traditional blog post this week, I thought it would be better to provide links to […]

Heutagogy

May 28, 2014 - General - by Mark - No Comments

If you have spent time discussing teaching concepts with me, you know I do not like the term pedagogy. First (and foremost), I teach adults (not children). The root of pedagogy implies teaching children. Second, I do not like teacher based learning (where there is an expert providing bits of […]

Spring 2014 Semester Reflections

May 21, 2014 - ICC - by Mark - No Comments

As the spring, 2014, semester draws to a close, I wanted to reflect on many events. Surprisingly, my overall comments parallel those made by the keynote speaker [Carl Cannon] at ICC graduation a few days ago. Overall, I am always impressed by how much students learn and grow during the […]

Adobe Voice

May 14, 2014 - Adobe - by Mark - No Comments

Adobe Voice is an app (iPad only) which allows you to create simple demonstrations, announcements and many other short videos. You use a photo, icon, or text on a given slide. You can choose from a variety of layouts, themes, and background music. I find the interface intuitive. I also […]

Lightroom Mobile

May 7, 2014 - Adobe , Technology - by Mark - 2 Comments

Those who know me will recognize that I have been promoting the use of mobile devices for quite some time. In my opinion, tablets and smartphones are content creation devices as well as content consumption devices. I have been recently working with Adobe Lightroom Mobile on my iPad. In order […]

Project Parfait

April 30, 2014 - Adobe , Technology , Web - by Mark - 2 Comments

Modern web design techniques focus around the concepts of responsive design. As such, many modern workflows include the concept of design in browser. An excellent overview of these modern processes can be found at CSS-Tricks. Adobe recently introduced an experiment that complements such a workflow – Project Parfait. For those […]

Tagged: Design WebDesign

New Beginnings

April 23, 2014 - Who knew? , WOW - by Mark - 2 Comments

As many readers know, my son and his family lost everything in the Washington, Illinois tornado of Nov. 17, 2013. We recently helped them move into a new home. I wanted to thank everyone who has been so generous with their time, money, and other assistance. This short video is […]

Behind the screen – SnagIt

April 16, 2014 - Learning , Technology - by Mark - No Comments

I am continuing to focus on various tools I use to help students better understand various concepts and tools. This week, I focus on SnagIt (from Techsmith). Essentially, this tool allows you to take screen captures. Ok, I already know how to use the PrntScrn key (including the Alt+PrtScrn to […]

2014 Illinois Web Design Contest

April 9, 2014 - Web - by Mark - No Comments

The 2014 Illinois Web Design contest was held in Springfield on April 4, 2014 (with a briefing of participants on April 3). This represents the 14th year I have supervised this contest. Many thanks to Jonathan Worent for his help in the supervision of this contest and for portraying the […]

Behind the screen – Presenter

April 2, 2014 - Adobe , Technology - by Mark - No Comments

This is the second part of my attempt to share some of the technologies I use when teaching online classes. I previously briefly reviewed Adobe Connect. I thought it might be helpful to next focus on Adobe Presenter. I use this tool periodically to introduce a topic. Students in my […]