[Nfb-web] Web Design as a Career

Thu Mar 5 16:52:35 UTC 2009

Good morning everyone,

    Following on with Arnold's comments this is something I've been thinking 
about for a while. Web Site Design and Management falls under Technology in 
the STEM acronym we often hear discussed in conversations concerning our 
science initiative. We have a Youth SLAM coming up this summer; a wonderful 
opportunity to introduce blind youngsters to the World of Web Site planning, 
design, construction, and management. Will a Web Design Track be a part of 
this year's Youth SLAM Program? If you asked me it should be! Given all of 
us who successfully build and manage Web sites for our affiliates and other 
entities and the all-ready rich amount of resources available to assist 
blind Web developers we should be doing more to inspire more blind youth to 
consider Web Development as a career.

    Gary Wunder and I have had some correspondence concerning this matter. I 
believe one of the biggest issues to be resolved is how best to do it. I 
suggested to him that a portion of this year's Webmasters Workshop be 
devoted to developing strategies as to how to inspire more blind people to 
seriously consider becoming Web developers.

 In discussing building Web sites for some of our affiliates the question 
has been asked, "Whose going to fill your shoes" when you leave this World. 
Although I enjoy creating and servicing affiliate Web sites I recognize that 
I'm not going to live forever. This and the all ready significant number of 
blind Web professionals has lead me to believe that this is a career more 
blind individuals should give serious consideration and that we as a group 
should play a part in making that happen.

I've given this matter some thought and have casually tried out some ideas 
for teaching particular concepts to other blind people. The NFB Jernigan 
Institute doesn't run from a challenge. I'm hoping we can partner with them 
to develop new and innovative ways of instructing blind persons in Web site 
design and maintenance to ensure that our Web resources will continue to 
grow and be cared for and to create new Web entities if and when they're 
needed. I'll look forward to reading the feedback.

Peter Donahue

 ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arnold Bailey" <arnoldbail at gmail.com>
To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 6:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] NFB-WEB Sandbox

Mike.

Thanks to Everett and yourself for the comments.

My interest in Drupal is twofold.

   1. Curiosity and to expand my knowledge.
   2. I have this vision of creating a platform to draw blind and visually
   impaired students into investigating programming as a career. It would be
   great if it was at a national level; but, a chapter level is ok. With 70%
   unemployment in our community, there is obviously a great need. I must
   admit, though, that, other than Peter D,, I've found zero support. But, I
   can't give up the vision without feeling I've let down a lot of kids. The
   Drupal development platform and learning support activities that it
   requires, I think, is a great learning mechanism.

Arnold

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Michael Hansen <mhansen4 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Arnold,
>
> Everett is correct. My thought on the matter would be how much do you
> want the ISP to take care of versus how much are you the Admin willing
> to take care of?
>
> Mike
> ---
> Mike Hansen
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:20 AM, E.J. Zufelt <everett at zufelt.ca> wrote:
> > Good morning,
> >
> > If the ISP supports mysQL and PHP it takes about 20 minutes to install
> > Drupal for a hosting account.
> >
> > HTH,
> > Everett
> >
> >
> > On 4-Mar-09, at 8:37 AM, Arnold Bailey wrote:
> >
> >> Mike,
> >>
> >> Very nice work. I did notice that in firefox the navigation side bar is
> >> located into the center of the webmasters sandbox page. In IE it's 
> >> fine.
> >>
> >> One question I have. Is there any thoughts given to affiliate and
> chapters
> >> usage of drupal? It seems like it would make sense for the affiliate 
> >> and
> >> chapters to pull a drupal theme and NFB applications and use them on
> their
> >> site, The problem is that drupal is not usually found on most ISPs. I
> >> would
> >> think that a single ISP that has drupal support would be cost
> effectively
> >> justified.
> >>
> >> Arnold
> >>
> >> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 11:38 PM, Michael Hansen <mhansen4 at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The Sandbox is now up and running on our website. If you want to play
> >>> around with a drupal install and not have to worry about breaking
> >>> something there is one there for you. If you want to experiment with
> >>> other things just create a sub directory off of the root and dorp in
> >>> your code. Complete login information is posted on our website.
> >>>
> >>> Let me know if you have questions.
> >>>
> >>> Mike
> >>> ---
> >>> Mike Hansen
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
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> >
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