Is there really a <cool> tag?! You bet. ;-)

Schedule
- 10:10 - 10:30 Weblog: Midterm Evaluation
- 10:30 - 10:40 XHTML Propaganda: XHTML in action (Quad/Spark)
- 10:40 - 12:00 XML Intro and exercise (Lloyd)
- 12 - 1 Lunch
- 1:00 - 2:00 Work on project
- 2:00 - 2:30 Realworld XML, Part 1 (Raymond)
- 2:30 - 3:00 Sun! Wind! Rain!
- 3:00 - 4:00 Realworld XML, continued
- 4:00 - 4:30 Free period / website project

It hardly seems like it to the casual observer/user of the Internet, but for the past two years, a revolution HAS been taking place under the hood of the Net, so to speak, and that revolution is characterizable in 3 letters: X, M and L. For the next couple of sessions, we'll try to get a glimpse into this sea-change, and try to understand why it's making a difference in how data is moved, exchanged, and understood.

We'll do this by getting our feet wet creating well-formed XML documents--something not very difficult to do, and then investigating how valid XML docs are created. For this morning's exercise, we'll use the following tool: XML well-formedness checker and validator.

This afternoon, we'll have a guest speaker, Raymond Yee of Cal's Interactive University, who will show us one or two real-world applications of XML. You'll in fact find it rather familiar, as it has to do with weblogs. (Raymond's weblog is here.)

Some XML stuff:
W3C Recommendation: Associating stylesheets with XML documents

Linking to a stylesheet from an XML document:
<?xml-stylesheet href="mystyle.css" type="text/css"?>

Weblog / Journal Question

For the midterm evaluation, I would like you to write a weblog entry on some questions -- a very easy midterm, compared to other ATDP courses' exams! AIC is one of the very few ATDP classes that don't stress you out with tests and finals. :-) Understand that this evaluation has NOTHING to do with your course grade, and EVERYTHING to do with how this class is run. We want to do better for you, and need your complete honesty and clarity of thinking on these questions.

So, please write about the following:

1. Evaluate the course: Is this class what you thought it would be? Is it fulfilling your expectations, or not? Are we going too fast, too slow, or just right? Are we covering enough material? Too much? Too little? What do you think of the weblog/journal writing?


2. Evaluate the instructors and TAs: How are we teaching? Are we confusing, or easy to understand? Are we asking enough questions and helping out enough? What do we need to do be of more assistance to you? Comment separately about the instructors (Lloyd, Quad, the TAs: Kass, Spark, Bigi, Eric) and about the TAs. You may, if you wish, comment on individual instructors or TAs whom you have felt have been particularly helpful to you.


3. Evaluate yourself: How do you feel you're doing in the class? Has learning the stuff we've covered (CSS, Photoshop/Flash, XHTML, etc.) been fairly easy, moderately so, or difficult for you? Has your thinking about web design and web content been stimulated by this course, or not? What do you expect of yourself for the last half of the session?

Homework
Continue working on your website projects. Upload docs or bring them to the lab and upload them next Tuesday.

 

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Pictures:
3 AIC Boys
4 AIC Girls
AIC Football 1
AIC Football 2
AIC Football 3
AIC Football 4
AIC Football 5
AIC Football 6
Kass' Hair
Kass Says Stop
Walking Back 1
Walking Back 2
Walking Back 3
Walking Back 4
Walking Back 5