Frustrated with Course
I’m 3 days away from my second ‘exam’/computer marked assessment and I can’t help but feel frustrated at the irrelevant nature of the questions. This course advocates accessibility, it has encouraged my fellow pupils to discuss all the things that make a good website… and yet the course material (the book that is sent out) is out of date and what’s worse — the chapter that the majority of the questions are coming from this time, states:
Tables currently are used as the primary design tool throughout the web.
It’s no wonder we have so many amateur web designers and design firms out there claiming to be uber great and yet can’t even get to grips with basic CSS if this is what is being taught!
Regina said:
On 13 Nov at 10:04 pm
Wow. That’s shocking, especially because it’s a computer course. They should REALLY get new textbooks.
Mackenzie said:
On 13 Nov at 10:36 pm
That particular sentence doesn’t, however, state that tables are the best design tool. Did you happen to check to see when this book was published/printed? How are you going to go about answering these questions? By what is in the textbook or by what you know? Would you feel any kind of guilt if you used the actual textbook answers?
Josh said:
On 13 Nov at 10:40 pm
Seems like you and Jordan are having similar woes. Outdated and deprecated knowledge seems to be all too common in web design courses.
Jem said:
On 13 Nov at 10:42 pm
@Mackenzie: the book was last published in 2006 it seems, which is sad in itself because I know for a fact it was more than feasible to create well-coded and compatible CSS layouts last year! I am going to have to answer based on the textbook. As much as it would delight me to say ‘sod it’ and give different answers, I’ve paid for the course and it’s just not an option to fail it. :(
Regina said:
On 13 Nov at 11:04 pm
Ouch. That was bad. There goes all my hopes into learning something should I apply to webdesign school as I thought about.
Grant said:
On 13 Nov at 11:43 pm
Your a student? yeah my mate is a php coder but he thinks he is this awesome designer! he still uses tables, my college tried to “teach me” to make a website a few weeks ago and they were like use tables, a was like no i can make website its ok. My school as well taught in tables i was the only person that used divs and some other main “should be standard” coding.
Aaron said:
On 14 Nov at 1:16 am
That bullshit! 2006?! They should know better. I can understand them saying something along the lines of “many amateur designers out there rely on tables for website layouts but in reality, they should be using CSS.” At least it would acknowledge a relevant and problematic trend in the web design community instead of enforcing it.
Jessie said:
On 14 Nov at 2:35 am
I think it’s a real sad state. I went to school and studied web design/development, but I was in independent study for the most part. I was trying to find some web design agencies in the area and the one that I found that had a decent appearing site was totally laid out in tables! It’s a bit discouraging, don’t you think?
Hannah said:
On 14 Nov at 2:38 am
My computer class is the same. When it came to making web pages: “use tables as layout tools, use interactive content such as videos and background music”- it was horrible. Courses in web design/web anything need to update materials every year- things change fast!
Hev said:
On 14 Nov at 3:03 am
Tables are the most popular? Hmm…do these people visit the sites I see every day? I guess not. I agree completely. How can we expect to move ahead in the design field when the teaching world keeps holding us back?
Chantelle said:
On 14 Nov at 3:11 am
That sucks. I’d complain to the instructor about it, and make sure she fixed it. “*something nice* This information is out of date. *whine* Please give us supplemental material or allow us to ignore the incorrect parts of our text.” I don’t know how it’d work in your situation, but you’re paying for the course… so the least they should do is stay on top of current events.
Dave said:
On 14 Nov at 3:58 am
They’ve obviously changes the materials. When I did the course (before 06) the books were quite good and didn’t go down the table route.
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 6:27 am
But tables ARE the primary design tool. I know I had to stomp my feet quite hard (metaphorically speaking), until they relented that yes, we CAN use divs for the interface of the web application we work on. But we still have 2096450764 tables in the individual content pages (i.e. master – content pages are ASP’s alernatives to php includes). I’d change them, unfortunately the amount of effort required, is not worth it. So, as much as I hate it, the book is right. And my colleagues think that I have a serious obsession. Though I’m generally getting the task of designing the interface in these projects (among other things, of course).
Kaylee said:
On 14 Nov at 6:38 am
For a computer-related course, maybe they shouldn’t have textbooks anyway. The material could just be on the internet or on a CD, and it could be updated easily :/ I know I wouldn’t mind not lugging heavy books around!
Mumblies said:
On 14 Nov at 7:27 am
Maybe it’s a test to see if you recognise that their material is out of date? Either way Jem, I have confidence in your ability to excel :o)
Annie said:
On 14 Nov at 8:40 am
To be fair that statement is true, unfortunately. Even though CSS is the better suited method of web design many web users still use/depend on tables.
Luke L said:
On 14 Nov at 8:41 am
Damn I’m lucky then, my degree course will not accept any pages unless they are strict 1.0 XHTML with semantic markup. The first thing the lecturer said was forget tables, forget WYSIWYG and forget FrontPage.
Jordan said:
On 14 Nov at 8:43 am
It’s definitely frustrating for anyone that’s in the technology field in school. Things are constantly evolving into something better, that it’s going to be impossible for the courses to stay with the times. I think it all depends on the teacher too. Another Internet Tech. class of mine includes a webdesign portion, but the teacher tried to introduce using CSS and how to use DIVs over tables. Granted, his design skills were still subpar but I thought that was definitely better then students learning deprecated code and skills that would be laughable to any true [web 2.0] company that wants the latest and greatest. I’m having a hard time sucking it up. I hate that I’m dumbing myself down for some grade. Yanno?
Phil said:
On 14 Nov at 8:50 am
I think I’d have to leave if I read that, just walk out and leave. It seems that there is nothing that the course can teach you! In fact, it needs to learn some lessons itself. If this part of the course is about accessibility, then perhaps you should point the course in the direction of the WCAG 1.0, point 5.3: “Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized.” Good luck!
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 9:25 am
Did you both miss the point? It would seem so. I am more than aware that many people still do use tables over CSS, the fact is that if people are being taught that they *should* use tables how is anyone ever going to progress? Unfortunately Phil, I’m already more than aware of that. The course itself is made up of 6 modules and this one and the second are likely to consist entirely of stuff I already know. However, if I want to get the qualification to back-up my experience I’ve got to see it through.
Rachael said:
On 14 Nov at 10:53 am
See, this is what puts me off doing a similar course… And I know Lilil is having the same frustration with her uni degree. She was telling me onetime how she failed a paper because she told the teacher that the questions were stupid. If I remember right, there was a question “What would body {font-family:monotype cursiva;} do?” and Lilil replied something along the lines of “F*ck all. It’s an obscure font not many people have,” but in a more intelligent way…
Brigitte said:
On 14 Nov at 11:40 am
Wow, that just sad and wrong …
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 12:37 pm
I agree with you that it’s more logical, but my colleagues (none of whom learned web design in uni) DO have their reasons as well. We develop we based applications, which have to be compatible with IE and FF. We have to use a lot of java_script there, and sometimes the interface keeps breaking on either IE or FF so much, that no one really has the patience to write a separate stylesheet for IE/FF. Especially, when there are bugs in the functionality as well… Fact is that all of these so called web design/web development courses are taught by the wrong persons. They get computer science professors to teach them, and these will never take HTML and CSS seriously. To them if it’s in C, accesses 74576 registries, declares a truck load of pointers… well THAT’s real programming. Anything else is just there to pass time. As such, they don’t take the subject seriously. Those who are not computer programmers though, generally learn this stuff from computer programmers, as they have (at some point) taken a class like he one you are now. So yeah… it’s a sort of endless cycle (stop making me rephrase myself :P – it’s not code) I understand computer programmers’ view (though I don’t condone it), but this sadly causes a lot of harm for people who want to learn web design from such courses. I’m hoping that if we give it time… I’m deluding myself here…
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 1:35 pm
Excuses, excuses.. that’s all it boils down to Vera. I’ve heard it all before; I’ve worked with people who have given me the same bullshit and then spent days correcting a site structure problem that I could have fixed in 30 seconds through a stylesheet. People are too lazy to even bother trying new things, and THAT’S the problem. I hope you don’t think I’m disregarding what you’re saying, because I’m not, just the idea that its a valid excuse. Like I said in the post.. the course itself – and the people moderating/teaching it – seem to be advocating accessibility and usability, so the problem isn’t with them. The problem lies in the materials, and I don’t see why the author wasted his time advocating tables and explaining how to structure layouts with them when he could have skipped it altogether.
Kimmie said:
On 14 Nov at 2:42 pm
Stop feeling so superior. Welcome to the tech industry where every class you will ever take will always be some what out of date. Deal with it, suck it up, and don’t whine about it. If it really bothers you that much, and you really think you can make a difference, then write your own textbook. If you manage to actually finish writing it in say… two years, I guarantee that the second you are done your book it will be out of date. Not only that, but then you need to convince professors to actually use it in their classroom. Now, while you’re sitting here personally offended because the textbook advocates using tables, the rest of the world has realized that textbooks are a business, not an education. For most of these textbook writers, writing is their means of living. They don’t care that the content is old. They want it on the shelf, in student hands and money flowing into their pockets. There’s no real way you can win. Every other academic has learned to deal with it, so you need to as well. I disagree with you. I totally blame your teacher’s/class for the faults in it. In the better classes, the textbook is supplemental material. For example, in my networking class, my networking textbook has a map of the internet in it. That’s how old it is. However, my professor is having us set up Ethernet networks, learn the math behind how to set up a network, write programs like AIM, how to hack into other networks that are secure, and none of that is in the textbook. The fact is, good professors/teachers don’t teach out of the book. Everything we really learn comes from the lecture. Then, the test is completely from the lecture. If you are being tested on the book material the problem IS with your teacher(s) and the class, not with the textbook.
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 3:10 pm
I was going to add the speed of development, but Kimmie beat me to it. First of all, if a person is really passionate about his/her job, he WILL do a lot of self study. That’s the way it is in ALL fields. No course prepares you for “real life”… you go o get a job, stare at your task as if they were written an ancient as of yet undeciphered language for the first few weeks… and then you learn to adapt. I know, that I barely use anything from what I learned in uni (well the basic concepts of OOP and some C# synntax), but aside that I had to learn almost everything from scratch. Second of all, there is a belief that web design and computer programming are the same. Why? Because, we might have made use of some HTML files when outputting some program’s result. They don’t realize that HTML is just the surface of web design. So what do they do? They put a computer science professor there. He reads a few articles on HTML, CSS, sees that they’re dead easy compared to what else he has to teach… and there you have it. I’m willing to bet that none of these professors ever worked for a company that built sites for clients. If they had, they wouldn’t e teaching you what they do. Basically, just like Kimmie said, the professors are not good. Though I’d go further and say that the professors are not good because they lack the necessary knowledge. Worst of all: they don’t even realize it.
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 3:13 pm
I paid for the course Kimmie, and if I don’t like it I’m going to whine, whinge, complain, rant, bitch, moan, act superior and anything else I bloody please. Such is the nature of my weblog, in fact. This is an online course, we don’t have classes and lectures, therefore the course material is not supplemental at all. It is effectively the core of the course, and therefore a better choice could have been made about what book to supply. The idea that all books are out of date and therefore no effort should have been made to supply more accurate literature is ludicrous – I own books *older* than the textbook in question which cover “modern” techniques and CSS in greater depth! Had you bothered to read my previous posts on taking the course you’d know the majority of this. @Vera: I’m not even sure what you’re on about now – life/uni? Computer Studies professors? It’s all irrelevant to what I’ve said…
Sarah said:
On 14 Nov at 3:19 pm
Pff, at my college, you’re hard pressed to be able to sell your textbooks back to the university bookstore because a new edition comes out every year and our professors feel the urge to update. Regardless of the fact that statistics really hasn’t changed that much since last year, I had to buy a brand new textbook this year instead of using my friend’s previous edition. Apparently for your course, it’s the exact opposite: a subject that changes rapidly and frequently doesn’t warrant updating its textbook, when it really should.
Kimmie said:
On 14 Nov at 3:31 pm
Gee, and you think I don’t pay for college? Gasp! I’m paying several thousand dollars for a four credit course and the book is out of date! GASP! I can’t even believe you are even complaining about the quality of an online education. You picked to do an online course. Therefore, maybe you should learn from this that online courses are shit. I mean seriously, what was going through your brain when you signed up for the course? “I’m going to learn so much about web design through a box. No need for class interaction, group projects or working closely with the professor. No need to be able to walk up to a white board and draw my ideas out and have the class discuss them. This is adequate.” It’s your own foolishness that led you to where you are now. Online courses are not comparable to in the classroom education. Sorry, but they aren’t, and they never will be. Like I said, write your own textbook and see how far you get before everything you have written is completely out of date. Maybe the guy started writing his book ten years ago. He doesn’t care that it is out of date. Chances are, the professor in charge of the class is either a) friends with the guy who wrote your book or b) got enough free stuff that he agreed to use it for his class. That’s business, and it has nothing to do with your education. The professor just plain doesn’t care. Maybe if you were in a real classroom with the prof and you got to know each other as people he wouldn’t just associate your work with an email address. Most of my professors here on campus say they couldn’t care less about their online courses that they are teaching. It’s just extra money before Christmas. And I agree with Vera, I think what she had to say is relevant to your post.
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 3:39 pm
Oh yes, that’s what I said. I said that you haven’t paid a cent for your education. (Where’s a ‘roll eyes’ smiley when you need one?) Again, had you read the previous posts on the subject you would know that I’m not taking the course for the knowledge. But why would you read the posts when you could sit here and pretend to know what you’re on about? I’m sure that’s much more fun. Feel free to explain how Vera’s comment is relevant, because all I see is a wordier explanation of what she said originally. Some crap about professors and programming when the problem lies with the book? Like I said: irrelevant.
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 3:44 pm
I thought this course was provided through some college. And generally university/college professors don’t have much hands-on experience. As such they aren’t able to teach their course accordingly… or they don’t care. I payed for my studies at the Commerce college, and had tonnes of idiotic professors. Do yo think anyone cared one whit about it? If I wanted to pass the year, I had to suck it up.
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 3:48 pm
It is provided through a genuine university Vera, but as I said several times: the “professors” (I’m not sure if they’re qualified to that level, but lets go with it) and course moderators are the ones advocating accessibility. This is why I don’t feel that lazy professors are relevant to the ‘problem’ or what you keep repeating (not because I think you’re wrong; I had useless lecturers when I was in college exactly as you describe.) As for caring, I don’t recall asking anyone to care or suggesting that anyone does care? If I expected people to care about every blog topic I posted on I would never post. Do you assume that people care about what you write about or do you post it anyway?
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 3:56 pm
Either not all of them are “advocating” accessibility, or they haven’t read the book. I suppose it’s probably the former: some old guy, set in his way is responsible for the department which provides this course and he decided that this is the book. he might not be the one actually teaching the subject, bu the rest have to suck it up. Why? Because if they do they might climb higher on the ladder of importance and get a more prestigious and better paying job. When I said “care” I was referring to the professors. If they aren’t at all interested in how the students taking said course understand the material, or what they think about it – then obviously they can’t be teaching it well. Or the possibility is close to nonexistent at any rate.
Jordan said:
On 14 Nov at 3:59 pm
I fail to see how an in-class environment is going to be any better than an online environment. I have both at my finger tips, and neither of them is better than the other. Especially the in-class course. I’m already in the same field as the teacher (he’s 2 years older than me) and my work is 110% better then his. He still uses tables, and I don’t. The only difference between him and my online teacher is that he did take the time to explain that the world doesn’t revolve around tables. So I agree with you that a lot of it has to do with who is instructing your class. I just think it’s a bit fucking harsh to go on the way you have. I bitched and moaned about my online webdesign course, so does that make me any less of a person because it’s an online course? What the fuck is someone supposed to do when their prerequisite classes aren’t popular enough and can ONLY be taken online? Either way everything is subjective. We all go to different schools, we all live in different areas. Everything is going to be different. We either luck out and have teachers who care about you knowing the latest out there, or you have people who stick to the book because this is not their field.
Stephanie said:
On 14 Nov at 4:29 pm
i think jem was more saying that this textbook, which can be picked up by anyone, is supplying outdated material. it wasn’t necessarily a bash against the course as much as it was a statement of, “how are people to learn when this is the information they’re presented with?” you don’t need to be in a class to buy a textbook and use it for your purposes. i will say that jem’s professors should be like, “hey, that’s not exactly correct,” but her professors and course are, as she said, irrelevant. it’s the text’s fallacies that are the issue. correct me if i’m wrong, but it seems like the frustration is more directed to the material, not the instruction. however, i will say that the book is not necessarily incorrect — tables are more than likely the primary designing tool on the web, as in, that is what is used by the majority. But, the text should expound on this fact and state that the CORRECT designing tools are divs.
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 4:52 pm
Hi Stephanie, meet the university professors. I felt the exact same way my first year at college. I came from a really good high school, and had excellent teachers. So I assumed that once I got into a good college I’d get good professors. What I got – well not ALL of them, but the vast majority – a bunch of old geezers who demanded respect because they have been teaching there for centuries. So what if their material was outdated, so what if they demanded stupid things? They were the professors who demanded respect, and we were lowly students who didn’t know what was good for them. regardless if we were paying or not.
Kimmie said:
On 14 Nov at 5:45 pm
Stephanie, quite frankly, I would probably never buy a textbook outside of college. Textbooks tend to be overly expensive. Chances are I would buy a quick reference book focused on the subjects I am interested in. Not only that, but it is really hard to walk into a Barnes & Noble and find the textbook section. It doesn’t exist. You basically have to order them online or buy them from a college bookstore. Textbooks are meant to be sold to students. They aren’t aimed at someone interested on learning something on the side. Therefore, if the concern is aimed at the majority of the public, then I wouldn’t worry about it. If I was in Barnes and Noble, I’d buy a $20 CSS handbook over a $100 web design textbook, if they even had it right then and there. Like Vera said, the professors demand respect, and we give it to them. They generally couldn’t care less about you as the student. And they don’t give two shits if the textbook is outdated. The only professor(s) who are interested in you as a person and your education tend to be the ones you are friends with outside of class. The point is: They don’t care. So you can be upset that people are being “trained incorrectly” or you can do what Vera and I do and blame it on the individual. If the individual does care, they will do their own research and they will make an effort to learn outside of school (which is exactly what you do). You can hardly blame school for training people wrong. Most people understand that a degree is not about what you know, it represents that you can be taught.
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 6:01 pm
Just to clarify – this is not a textbook that you would expect to be working from in college/university (or not one that I would have expected when I was in college). This is nothing more than a “learn basic html” type book.. exactly that aimed at “learning on the side”. (ISBN: 0619216662 if you’re wondering) It’s all well and good blaming individuals, but if they’re being told “this is right, end of”, how are they going to gain the confidence to question it? You end up with naive people who think that everything else is wrong because their professor/lecturer said so.
Kimmie said:
On 14 Nov at 6:35 pm
Yeah I just looked at your book on Barnes & Noble’s website. It’s totally considered a textbook, not to mention the fact that it is $80. There’s no way in hell I would walk into Barnes and Noble and buy an $80 book for fun. Sure, you get some people who are naive and think everything their professor says is great, but chances are they’ll end up in management while you continue to do web development. They get to manage and you get to do what you love to do. Is that the best way? Probably not, but it is the way life is.
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 6:41 pm
Hm, maybe my expectations of textbooks are skewed. I expect a lot more of a textbook. Either way, it’s still shit. There are other books better suited to the course, IMO. I don’t know, that probably IS the best way. I would rather I were doing web developing and some loony above me managed instead of the useless idiot web developing and me having to manage them. I simply wouldn’t have the patience.
Vera said:
On 14 Nov at 6:51 pm
But Jem, your tutors are not YOU. They don’t visit Eric Meyer’s site, they don’t read A List Apart, they are not trying to be better at this. I understand your approach to this: if 30% of the web developers were doing it like you, there would be a lot more well coded and secure sites. They never heard of Google right? They wouldn’t know how to google for a web design related forum, right? In the end, you’re the best example: if there’s a will one can become good. Problem is that the vast majority are not interested in learning on the side. And I don’t mean books here. I’m referring to occasionally browsing through a magazine that is even vaguely related to their area of “interest”.
Jem said:
On 14 Nov at 7:01 pm
..and that’s why I’m ranting on MY weblog, and not TO my tutors, or TO the university, or on THEIR course forum? I almost feel like shouting “d’uh” because it’s not that difficult a concept to grasp. Saying “They never heard of Google right?” is all well and good, but that’s ignoring what I said. If the professor has belted into them that xyz is the right thing to do, googling is just going to make them say “well, obviously this web page is wrong, this person is wrong” etc etc. What’s more, web resources aren’t guaranteed to be right. You’re familiar with pixelfx.. is that right simply because it can be found through google? I don’t think so. This entire discussion goes (or is going) way beyond the scope of my little rant. We’re entering into the realm of education standards and the ability of professors, literary standards etc. Completely deviates from my original point.
Vasili said:
On 14 Nov at 8:31 pm
Tables? Really tables, wow. Like the only thing I use tables for is to align forms so they look better. But I rarely do that. I can’t image a good layout with only tables, that would kill me to code, I don’t know about you xD
Phil said:
On 14 Nov at 10:19 pm
Interesting point Jem, doing the course for the qualification is a different thing and I’m glad you’re not being lead down the wrong street (though for any beginners in the class, I really hope they pick up some better habits than the book teaches them). Out of interest, what course is it? I don’t have any web development qualifications to my name, so may be interested (regardless of the out of date material!) Oh, and whoever said that learning web development in classes was better than online is so far off the mark it’s not even funny any more. Not being able to approach a teacher and an entire class is swept aside when you can turn to the internet, including a whole bunch of professionals who can’t wait to help out and point a beginner, intermediate or fellow professional in the right direction. If you can’t find an answer on a blog or tutorial site then you can ask in a forum or on a mailing list. The only thing this wealth of knowledge and experience doesn’t get you is a certificate saying that you know these things, which is, I assume, why Jem is taking this course.
Ashley said:
On 14 Nov at 10:44 pm
I imagine any course about webdesign would be frustrating if taken by a PHP Ninja….
Ashley said:
On 14 Nov at 10:45 pm
FYI- I don’t know if you know or if it really matters, but your comments look odd in IE 7. There’s all these gray lines going right through the middle of people’s comments.
Vera said:
On 15 Nov at 10:59 am
You DO compare them with your standards, and your way of approaching web development though… I’m not saying it’s bad, just that very few people are perfectionists.
Jem said:
On 15 Nov at 11:06 am
I believe we covered this already: that’s because this is my weblog. Do you honestly expect me to discuss someone else’s thoughts, feelings and standards of work on my blog? It would be rather odd if I did. I don’t really understand what you’re getting at Vera..
Vera said:
On 15 Nov at 1:03 pm
… OK so maybe you don’t do it consciously. But you expect this course to be in a certain way (and teach you/others certain notions) because you’re paying for it. In other words, you intend the course to be relevant for issues one might encounter working as a professional. But despite the fact that you paid for the course, it doesn’t rise to your expectation. But how did you form these expectations? Starting from your own personal experience and the way you dealt with them, or well the way it’s best to deal with them. And you DO discuss people’s standards of work… based on your opinion about the textbook that encourages people to use tables for layout structures. But alright, alright… if you don’t want to keep discussing this… or well don’t want to understand what I’m getting at it’s fine. Our job description is different, so while we both basically do the same thing, we have a different view of the problem. And we can always agree to disagree.
Jem said:
On 15 Nov at 1:44 pm
It’s not a case of not wanting to understand Vera, I genuinely have no idea what you are trying to say. You’ve jumped from topic to topic all loosely based on the same idea but haven’t once clarified what it is exactly that you’re getting at. Now you’re talking about whether I consciously or subconsciously hold people/things to my standards – I already said that YES I do that? Yes, I expect the course to have some degree of quality because I’m paying for it, just like I’d expect a product I purchased to have some degree of quality or a website, because I’m paying my ISP fee to browse it. I’m still really not sure what your point is though. That I have standards? Yes. That I expect the course to be of some quality? Yes. That I expect expensive course material to be relatively up to date and hold relevant information? Yes. I’ve not denied any of these things which is why I have no idea what you’re trying to push me to say.
Vera said:
On 15 Nov at 2:42 pm
I’m not trying to push you to say anything. You’re the one who says that everything I’m saying is irrelevant. I simply said that university professors generally don’t care about the accuracy of the content of the subjects they teach. Does it suck? Yes. Can you do anything about it (aside from ranting on the blog)? Most probably not. But I also went on to say, that while current web standards advocate accessibility, I can understand why people (i.e. programmers) choose to ignore them.
Ruth said:
On 15 Nov at 2:44 pm
This reminds me of a unit I took at university which (unbeknowst to me at the time of choosing) covered html… One of the exam questions was “List 3 reasons for using frames and 3 reasons for not using frames”. Three GOOD reasons for using frames, from my point of view where I’m used to trying to make my sites conform to accessiblity standards… I was stumped. Looking at the html he used for pages he wrote and used on the web in real websites almost make me feel queasy it was that bad.
Jem said:
On 15 Nov at 3:11 pm
Because it is. My original entry made a simple statement about people learning the old when they could be learning the new because of outdated material. It was nothing to do with my professors (or yours), nothing to do with subconscious application of standards, nothing to do with whether or not I chose to do an online or offline course, nothing to do with the majority of things you or Kimmie were repeatedly saying.