Teaching Materials

Over the past few years I've developed several assignments, quizzes, and handouts for my classes. These are a few of my favorites.

Viewlets are so completely kicking cool. Please excuse the enthusiasm -- they really are cool. Viewlets are small streaming presentations that demonstrate how software works. They're a great hit, especially with online students.

NLC Web Design Copyright Policy and the
Copyright Policy Quiz -- The first semester I taught I spent about half an hour lecturing briefly on copyright and intellectual property. The lectures weren't enough. Students were still trying to scan images out of magazines or "borrowing" art from someone else's website. The Computer Graphics Copyright Guidelines (co-authored with Chris Fulmer) helped formalize classroom expectations. Every student must read the guidelines and take the quiz over the material every semester. The quiz automatically emails results to the instructor and the student.

Macromedia Flash is one of my favorite tools for teaching animation and interactive programming. Students in my Flash classes develop animations, video games, and (in the third class) dynamic front ends for web applications.

The FTP Flowchart is an Acrobat document designed for beginning web design students, who often have trouble with the develop-test-publish work cycle.

Form processing and server-side scripting are increasingly important skills for students to learn. Most introductory textbooks gloss over these skills. I wanted students to have hands-on experience, so I created What Is ASP, ASP Calculator, and Using ASPEmail for the introductory web design classes. These exercises are intended as a follow-up to a textbook chapter on basic form construction.

Simple Things to Do With Text is a short Acrobat handout designed to help students think about text placement, alignment and effects.

This is my Color Wheel, an Acrobat document used in class to discuss basic color combinations. (And yes, I did notice that my wheel isn't round.)

After the lecture on color theory students are encouraged to take their skills shopping in Exploring Color.

Technology educators must know PowerPoint. Some educators dismiss PowerPoint, but it can be a powerful tool if used properly and sparingly. Most of these PowerPoints have audio thanks to RealNetwork's RealSlideShow.