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SVG vs Canvas Element

May 7, 2012 – 8:27 pm

Outstanding introduction to the differences in working with SVG and the HTML5 canvas element by Brad Neuberg.

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article COM 1000 Beginning HTML for my students html

The big picture

April 9, 2012 – 11:44 am

For my students

When first learning HTML, there is a lot of information to take in. Keeping an eye on the BIG PICTURE can go a long way towards preventing overwhelm. The main web technologies are HTML, CSS, DOM, and Javascript. That’s four different technologies that are often offered as one beginning course in many colleges. Obviously, you are not going to master any of it by the end of one  semester.  So don’t stress yourself out thinking you need to.

If you remember these simple facts going forward, you can understand which technologies are used for which roles. It’ll help them organized in your head and allow you understand how to look at the page source without becoming overwhelmed:

  1. HTML is structure and layout. You can’t manipulate anything until you place it on a page and give it a name or at least understand how to access via the DOM. HTML enables you to place an element on in a document.
  2. CSS  is used to control how the HTML elements look and are positioned on the page
  3. Understanding the DOM is understanding how the browser organizes the elements on the page, so you can get to them with Javascript and control them.
  4. Javascript is the scripting language of the web (client-side). It is how you give some control of page content and behavior to your user. It is how you create dynamic interaction based on page events that are triggered by the user.
As you go forward, if you can remember those simple things, you will be better equipped to understand how to use each technology to create your pages.

 

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for my students NSCC

Registering

August 2, 2011 – 6:09 pm

This article is meant to address some frequent questions I get from Visual Communication students regarding registration.

Student question: How can I determine which general education classes are available online?

General Education Core Course Web Page

First you need to determine the corresponding course numbers for the Gen. Ed. classes you wish to take so you can determine if they are offered online during the semester you need. Fortunately, Nashville State offers a wide selection of online classes for General Education. The following link will take you to the NSCC General Education Core Course web page, http://ww2.nscc.edu/catalog/GenEdCoreCourses.html.

Let’s say you want to take the beginning English Composition course. According to the course rubric, the course number is ENGL 1010  (English Composition I). Now you want to determine if ENGL 1010 is offered during your semester as an online offering.

Information Technology Web Page

Go to the Information Technology page at  http://ww2.nscc.edu/it/. You will find the Term and Program fields followed by the Search button in the right column.  Enter the term you are interested in and the program your course rubric falls into.

For example, let’s say you want to find out the English Composition I course for the Fall 2011 semester. Select Fall 2011 in the Term field. Since the course rubric for the English Composition I course is ENGL 1010, select ENGL in the Program Field and then select the Search button.

The resulting page will show the following information on each course being offered (Note the offerings are by campus):

CRN, Course, Section, Course Name, Status, Enrolled, Seats Available, Days, Time, Room, Instructor, Session

Since the question was concerned with online courses, we are interested in the CRN, Course, Section, Course Name, and Seats Available fields.

CRN (Course Registration Number) is the number you put into the CRN field when you register online for the course.

Course and Course Name fields will ensure you are selecting the correct course, i.e. ENGL 1010 English Composition I.

Seats Available field indicates how many seats are left in the course. If the number is 0 (zero), the class is full.

Section field indicates when the class is offered according to the following rules for the Main Nashville Campus:

  • 100s are daytime on-ground classes
  • 300s are evening on-ground classes
  • 700s are online classes
  • 765 are hybrid classes, i.e. they have both online and physical meeting requirements as defined by the instructor’s syllabus

Since we are looking for an online ENGL 1010 course we are looking for a section with the following numbers, 760, 76Y, 76Z or other 700 number other than 765 which is reserved for hybrid classes.

The Results

For the Fall 2011 class the following options are available as of today (August 2, 2011):

81329  	ENGL-1010  	760  English Composition I 	25  0
82839 	ENGL-1010 	76T  English Composition I 	25  0
82663 	ENGL-1010 	76U  English Composition I 	25  0
82483 	ENGL-1010 	76V  English Composition I 	11  14
82482 	ENGL-1010 	76W  English Composition I 	16  9
81839 	ENGL-1010 	76X  English Composition I 	7   18
81331 	ENGL-1010 	76Y  English Composition I 	7   18
81330 	ENGL-1010 	76Z  English Composition I 	16  9

Note that according to the ENGL 1010 online course availability listed above for the Fall 2011 semester, the following CRNs have seats available, 82483, 82482, 81839, 81331, and 81330. Also note that these numbers are always changing during registration. Seats fill up fast. Just because you see 4 seats available for a course now, doesn’t mean they’ll be there tomorrow. Once you see enrollment availability, register immediately for that class and pay asap so you do not loose that registration.

Registering

Follow the steps at http://www.nscc.edu/student-resources/mynscc/ to learn how to register using myNSCC.

Student Question: How do I know which courses I should register for any given semester?

For Visual Communication students the following course information should help guide you.

The following classes are only offered during the Fall Semester:

  • COM 1305 Multimedia I–Flash®
  • ENGL 2116 Writing for the Web

The following classes are only offered during the Springs Semester:

  • COM 1300 Site Building I–Dreamweaver®
  • BUS 1050 Legal Issues for the Web
  • COM2020 Multimedia Design (formerly Storyboarding & Scriptwriting)
  • COM2700 Multimedia and Web Design Capstone

 

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general

iAmda

July 7, 2011 – 2:32 am

I had the pleasure of discovering, and joining, the International Association of Mobile Digital Artists. I have started creating work with the iPad and iPhone. I’m especially interested in creating sequential art, to tell stories, using that medium. Below is an example of my recent work.

dandelion

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general

Design +

April 15, 2011 – 3:30 am

While looking for example CSS drop-down menu examples for a site I’m working on, I came across a project of a talented young UK web designer, Harry Roberts. If you have a moment, check out his sites and read some of his articles. You’ll learn a lot about CSS and Web Design.

http://csswizardry.com/web-design+/

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