Some interesting posts from A List Apart

My RSS reader finally decided to pick up the two post made to ALA on Sunday: Brighter Horizons for Web Education and Elevate Web Design at the University Level. The articles are dealing with the state of Web education. The general feeling is that our educational system is doing a terrible job of preparing the next generation of Web developers. Brighter Horizons for Web Education covers the initiatives that are underway to help improve the curricula found in our schools. One such initiative is sponsored by Opera. The Opera Web Standards Curriculum is a series of articles which run the gamut in terms of Web standards and design. I started with Information Architecture – Planning out a web site since I am currently serving on the College’s Web strategy team which is overseeing the redevelopment of the College’s web site. I found the article to be a very good read and I found myself asking if I had considered the things being discussed when I redesigned the Instructional Technology web site. The other initiatives discussed in the ALA article also seem like they would be very interesting to explore. Both articles lead me to ask “What role do the Liberal Arts play in educating the next generation of Web developers?” I’m not sure the many Liberal Arts institutions have thought about their answer to this question and it may be time for them to do so.