Written by David Charney
Posted: March 12, 2009 (2 years, 11 months ago) | 0 comments
RIApalooza was big hit in Chicago last year and this Summer it is back. There were great presentations and great networking. Visit the website at www.RIApalooza.com and get signed up today. Early birds only pay $10 dollars.
Here is the info:
Following the overwhelming success of 2008’s RIApalooza, we are proud to announce RIApalooza 2!
Join your fellow RIA professionals for an invaluable unconference aimed at exploring and promoting the development of Rich Internet Applications.
RIApalooza promises a platform agnostic and “PowerPoint-Free” zone, which means we are going to forgo the boring marketing pitches in favor of talking technology. RIApalooza is about creating Rich Internet Applications; how to go about building them and what is being built.
Presentations and sessions will be begin at 9am on Friday, May 8th. A social meet-and-greet will immediately follow at 5PM.
The event will be held at the Illinois Technology Association, located at 200 S Wacker Drive 15th Floor Chicago, IL 60606.
Written by David Charney
Posted: March 11, 2009 (2 years, 11 months ago) | 0 comments
Just a note - Added Sandy Fougerousse’s blog to my list of links (right sidebar). Check out her site. Many tips and tricks on all that is design and development.
Sandy recently gave the first Design 101 talk at cd2, covering color and layout. Her presentation can be downloaded from her site.
Enjoy!
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 16, 2008 (3 years, 3 months ago) | 0 comments
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. - Albert Einstein
Knowledge is a big ingredient when it comes to our ideas and actions. It is the foundation to what we do, how we think, and how we interact. Knowledge is often applied through the presentation of materials or, in some cases, by doing something less than smart and having a realization. This is my preferred method. When developing educational or training based applications we tend to look at three key ideas involved with understanding and applying knowledge: developing state-of-mind, problem solving skills, and experience.
Develop State-of-Mind
Knowledge is like compound interest. Learning and understanding how to apply knowledge is easier and faster once a foundation is in place. By developing the state of mind, we memorize more because we understand clearer and connect the dots more efficiently. A professional is a professional because they have a foundational view and experience of the subject at hand. By focusing the presentation of the materials on developing this foundation, a base can be set to focus on their their ability to apply their knowledge.
How? Ask the professionals. Find out what is foundational and build upon that. Listen to the questions that are asked by the students in current classes. There is a good chance that these questions are asked often and the answers and are asked because of a gap in their state-of-mind. By answering these questions in the materials, a new point-of-view, or state-of-mind will develop.
Develop Problem Solving Skills
Developing your audience’s state-of-mind runs hand-in-hand with their ability to problem solve. Too often information is simply given and not challenged. Taking a multiple choice test does not necessarily prove any information is actually understood. Applying knowledge tends to involve making decisions and solving problems to situations, so focus your presentation of the materials on building these skills.
How? Present problems and let the user figure out the answer. Sometimes a questions or situation will provide multiple views and approaches. Let the student explore. Help them if they need it. They will start to understand how changing a variable over here, directly relates to the outcome over there. Challenge their minds.
Develop Experience
Experience usually develops through the interaction someone has to a given subject. Experience is what develops alongside their state-of-mind and problem solving skills. It comes through understanding and feeling comfortable with their ability to apply knowledge to situations and scenarios.
How? With today’s technology and story telling methods, we can develop experience without expensive and time consuming on-the-job training. Even without training on an actual auto engine, the material can be presented through text, images, animation, and interactivity. By laying a foundation to what what an engine is, and scenarios to why it may be broken. It can allow the student to explore the various parts, names, and functionality. A few focused interactive challenges can be presented that test the students understanding of the engine and their ability to solve the problem at hand.
By focusing on these three learning ideas, students will retain more information, have a clearer understanding, and often find the subject matter far more interesting. All the ingredients you want in a good education.
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 15, 2008 (3 years, 3 months ago) | 1 comment
July 20th, 1969 - Man lands on the moon. October 15th, 2008 - Man creates bad ass image manipulation tool online. People amaze me. Seriously check out pixlr (www.pixlr.com). There are a few more of these Photoshop evil twins online that I need to check out. These are fantastic and really show the capabilities of Flash. Missing a few things (would love to be able to move layers around… but when they already have a clone stamp tool, I am sure movable layers are on their way). Throw this link in your favorites for the day you need to do a quick edit and Photoshop keeps giving you a scratch disk error for NO reason. Just kidding Photoshop… let’s never fight again.
Update: This link has several more: http://sixrevisions.com/tools/web-based-image-editors/
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 11, 2008 (3 years, 3 months ago) | 0 comments
On a very special CD2…
November 5 2008 6:30 PM CST
200 S. Wacker Drive, 15th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606 map
www.cd2ug.org
Join Corey Miller and Anthony Handley as they discuss what’s new in Silverlight 2 for developers and designers.
 |
Corey will cover some of Silverlight 2’s new features and how they enable developers to build functional rich internet applications in a .NET environment. |
 |
Anthony will discuss Silverlight 2 for designers and show how Expression Blend allows designers to bring creativity to the world of the .NET framework and build application user interfaces with interactivity and animation without needing to type a line of code. |
