Today's website consumers demand a tremendous amount of flexibility, responsiveness and interactivity from the websites they visit. People have become used to Web applications like Facebook, Gmail and Twitter which make heavy use of Web browser client-side programming in JavaScript and interaction with Web services using the AJAX programming model. This workshop will teach you the basics of Web browser client-side programming using Web standards. We'll take a quick tour of HTTP, DOM, Javascript, XML and JSON, then jump in with hands-on exercises using the jQuery Javascript library, building up an interactive website utilizing AJAX Web services. This year's session will closely resemble 2011's successful model, with different exercises. You should come prepared with a laptop, your favorite text editor and the latest version of the Firefox Web browser. Before the conference we'll also provide a list of Firefox extensions you'll need to install. A familiarity with JavaScript, DOM, HTML, CSS and some client-side programming is necessary for this session.
Presenter(s)
This popular HighEdWeb workshop is a great way to start off the conference! Using some of the cornerstone topics in communications and public relations, this workshop examines the development of good Web content. The second half of the workshop looks at research techniques available for developing and assessing websites.
Storytelling should serve as the framework for marketing and communications. In this workshop, you'll learn how great video storytelling includes a beginning, middle and end; strong images; clean sound; conflict; emotion and strong characters that tie into your university messaging and goals. You'll learn how to choose the right stories that will build credibility within your institution; discuss various documentary and promotional video shooting and editing styles; learn what kinds of video equipment and software fit within your budget and communication needs; get hands-on experience with video equipment and editing software; learn how to improve your videography, sound, lighting and interviewing techniques by watching specific examples; and outline how your videos interact with social media and your institutional websites. You can also submit your own videos prior to the start of the workshop to receive onsite critique and problem solving.
In the ever-changing world of marketing and communications, it is increasingly important to be agile in testing new media, setting key performance indicators, and evaluating your results. We will explain why this is so important and how you can ensure that your inbound strategy takes advantage of the flexibility that agile marketing techniques can afford your institution. We will start and end this workshop with an interactive discussion of inbound marketing strategies, and provide instructive presentations on the use of individual components of inbound marketing, including goal setting and measurement; content ideation and creation techniques; search engine optimization; the use of social media and how to incorporate analytics into your strategy. Beginners can expect to leave the workshop with a solid understanding of how these pieces fit together and how universities can leverage them to improve student application rates, enrollment rates, alumni engagement, student communications and donor conversions.
The Ruby on Rails framework can increase your productivity and happiness. It's right there on the official Rails website so it has to be true, right? In the Office of Geriatrics and Gerontology at The Ohio State University, we have leveraged the principles of high productivity and programmer happiness that Ruby on Rails promises to deliver quality distance education websites. The goal of this workshop is to expose you to the key concepts of the Ruby programming language and the Rails framework that make this possible. This workshop will be split into four parts: 1. Setup a Ruby on Rails Development Environment 2. Basics of the Ruby language constructs 3. RubyGems: reusable Ruby building blocks 4. Basics of Ruby on Rails framework. We will work towards developing a very basic CMS so that, by the conclusion of this workshop, you'll have a solid understanding of Ruby on Rails.
Is WordPress the right CMS for your department, or even your whole institution? How do you sell your colleagues on WordPress? What kinds of sites can you build with WordPress? We will discuss how WordPress's theme system is uniquely suited for campus-wide branding initiatives, and how you can create a single theme that allows your users to customize their own sites to the extent you allow. We'll do a quick walkthrough of installation process and the administration features, including some issues specific to campus networks. We'll talk about how to navigate the vast plug-in ecosystem, and how non-developers can evaluate plugins and themes.
News content is one of the best opportunities we have to convey information about our institution. By effectively telling stories about the people, events and experiences that make our schools special places to live and learn, we can create powerful connections with our audience that drive action. But how do we do this, when the higher ed newsroom is often still churning out press releases and not exploring storytelling, new content types and the role of social media? In this informative, interactive and slightly off-kilter workshop, we’ll dive into the principles involved in shaping the modern, effective higher ed online newsroom, including: an overview of storytelling; editorial partnerships and workflow; real-time coverage; newswriting for the web; multimedia and interactive content creation; the role of social media in news; SEO; structured content; and cross-channel publishing. Then, we will put those principles to test in a real-time exercise. You may enter Clark Kent, but you will leave as a news content superhero.
In higher ed, we're no strangers to doing more with less. We have less manpower, but higher expectations. We have fewer resources, but more responsibilities. We need new ways to curate content, to shine while presenting information and to make things interesting for our users. But it doesn't have to be mission impossible. You, too, can be a disruptive technologist. Let's talk disruptive technology and how you can use it to win friends and influence people. Need ways to curate information in an interesting format? We've got apps for that. Want a way to collaborate with coworkers that doesn't share internal information to outsiders? We've got ways to do that, too. How about growing your community? We're way ahead of you. In this workshop, you will explore emerging technologies to embed in your sites, add to the conversation, and add to your repertoire of looking good and being awesome. And really, who can't use an inside track to awesome?
Based on the Minimum Viable Product approach that is advocated by the Lean Thinking movement, this workshop will teach web professionals of all kinds — designers, developers, programmers, and content strategists — how to create web solutions by applying a product management approach to their work. No matter what your technical or professional capability is, you can apply product management principles to your web sites and applications in a way that guarantees you will get the best possible results with the lower possible cost and shortest schedule to delivery. The Minimum Viable Web workshop will walk you through several steps that, taken together, will lead you to higher levels of web design success. The workshop will connect the approaches of:
into an overall strategy for delivering progressively-enhanced design solutions that meet your users' and organizations' needs.
Dynamic content and HTML5 technologies are rapidly become a standard part of web design. This session will provide an overview of how to use the Accessible Rich Internet Accessibility (ARIA) technologies and HTML5 to improve the accessibility of dynamic web content. The session will also cover the issues with some features of HTML5 that can cause accessibility problems. The session will also present Open Source tools for inspecting the accessibility of web resources and creating WCAG 2.0 compliance reports using the OpenAjax accessibility evaluation library. The session will encourage participation by using examples of existing websites to show HTML5 and ARIA is integrated in to dynamic web content designs to improve accessibility and will use the websites of participants to illustrate the accessibility inspection and evaluation capabilities of the Open Source evaluation tools. The session will include: 1. Using ARIA landmarks to improve document navigation 2. Complying with WCAG 2.0 form accessibility requirements 3. Dynamic pull down and fly out menu accessibility 4. Accessibility of hiding and showing content in tabs 5. Basics of making HTML/Javascript widgets accessible 6. Accessibility features of open source widget toolkits like JQuery and Dojo 7. Using Open Source tools to inspect and evaluate the accessibility of resources for WCAG 2.0 compliance 8. Discussion of what is the difference between accessible design and WCAG 2.0 compliance.
During this workshop, we will write a simple WordPress plugin. I will take you through the basic steps of creating the plugin file, including the proper header, and using some basic API functions available in WordPress. As part of the plugin, we'll develop a new shortcode to be used anywhere within the content of posts and we'll develop a widget to be used in widgetized areas (such as sidebars and footers). We will also review the process of creating the "settings" area for the plugin to be displayed in the administration area of WordPress.
This session will show you how to turn your iPhone into a hub for high quality, professional photos and videos. Carrie and Brent will discuss a variety of apps to help you shoot and edit video and photos. Additionally, they’ll discuss some low-cost gadgets that will allow you to enhance the quality of your work. This is a hands on session, so be prepared to be interviewed or make a cameo appearance in a video. You’ll leave with an understanding on how to leverage your iPhone as a tool to help your university communicate its message.
With a conference registration, workshop rates are $120 for one and $200 for two. Without conference registration, workshop rates are $200 for one and $360 for two.
Sunday, October 7
Wednesday, October 10
