WOW Director of Education

I have heard it said that if you want to know what is going on in the world, you must participate in it. To me, this sums up my role as WOW Director of Education.

For those who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. I am a teacher at a community college in central Illinois. Before assuming my current role, cheap wow gold I worked in various business and industry and state government roles (mostly in Information Technology related positions) for several decades. I was also a consultant for a period of time. I have been working with web systems since 1992. I first met Bill Cullifer in the fall of 1999 at a conference in Chicago. He hasn’t been able to avoid me since cheap wow gold (and I have been a member of WOW since that time). After some initial discussions, I decided that WOW was an organization that I wanted to help succeed. Although there were other organizations of web professionals, WOW was the only one with an emphasis on education and community. Bill came to our college campus in April, 2001 and we established a local chapter of WOW at that time. Rationale for establishing a local chapter included providing opportunities for our students to network with practicing professionals and learn what is required to succeed in our profession.

Several years ago, a number of members of WOW cheap wow gold agreed it was time to try and establish national web curriculum standards. We held a preliminary meeting in Las Vegas as part of a WOW conference. One thing lead to another and I eventually agreed to help Bill as the WOW Director of Education.

Working in this capacity has provided me with many opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with business and industry leaders and educators who are equally passionate about web technologies and the need for consistent education and preparation. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to work with so many talented individuals who share their ideas and collaborate to help WOW and our efforts towards national web curriculum standards. cheap wow gold I believe we have made significant progress on this initiative in the past few years and I am most appreciative of the efforts expended by many individuals to get us to our current position. We now have 8 recognized WOW Academies which have been through a thorough review process and have validated they adhere to national web curriculum standards.

I find it refreshing to work with individuals who hold different views than I do and who are willing to share their perspectives. cheap wow gold We end up with a much better result through our collaboration and discussions. My point is that the collaboration is very necessary for us to maintain a nationwide focus (and not just a local view).

As a member of one of the WOW Academies, I believe it is also important for us to foster a sense of community and collaboration at the local level. For example, we need to hold more local chapter meetings to provide our students with opportunities to network with practicing web professionals. cheap wow gold We need to attract involvement from the local business and industry sectors so we can better serve the local needs for web professionals.

I am often asked by students (and peers) how I manage to stay on top of so many new developments with web technologies. The simple answer is that I maintain a large network of individuals who are willing to share their knowledge with me frequently. cheap wow gold Of course, I also do a fair amount of reading and try various techniques on my own.

In the time I have been working with WOW, I have seen a number of significant accomplishments. A few of these are listed below:

We have established WOW Academies which meet our national standards for web curricula.
We have begun offering web seminars to aspiring and practicing web professionals.
We have begun offering short courses to practicing and aspiring professionals on specific topics (like PHP fundamentals). cheap wow gold These courses typically last a few weeks and help an individual get up to speed quickly on a given technology.
We have begun to finalize a set of curriculum guidelines and pathways for students who are interested in web systems beginning with grade 9 and continuing through the Bachelor’s degree.
None of these accomplishments could have been accomplished without the efforts of many individuals and I am thankful for everyone’s help and support. Now that we have a foundation, some of our plans for the future include:

Finalize the curriculum guidelines and pathways for students interested in web systems.
Continue to work with local WOW chapters to promote education and community.
Continue to expand our educational offerings cheap wow gold (both webinars and short courses).
Continue to expand our WOW Academies and Education Alliance members to foster established curriculum standards.
During the course of our work, it is very easy to maintain our focus on what is needed to get the current job accomplished. However, it is our interactions with others which helps us also focus on what still needs to be accomplished. It is my hope that those reading this posting feel the need to become more involved (both at the local and national level). cheap wow gold We can always use more help.