Our CSS seminar introduced people to the use of style sheets in web development, explaining the process and benefits of applying changes universal to entire sites through the modifying of a single style sheet document. The seminar described how style sheets could be used to create specific types of HTML elements or manipulate existing elements. This Saturday-morning workshop offered a brief introduction to many of the web design and programming principles I teach in my English 313: Writing for the World Wide Web course as they relate to Cascading Style Sheets.

The JavaScript seminar, similar to the CSS seminar, served as a basic introduction; participants learned many purposes of JavaScript in webpages, such as developing dynamic content and interactivity within pages. Because of the complexity of the JavaScript programming language, the seminar offered rather simplistic practical examples of scripts that participants could begin working with, such as pop-up windows and mouseover functions, also material I developed for my English 313: Writing for the World Wide Web course.

With a panel composed of Rhetoric and Professional Communication professors and technical writers from various businesses around the Ames, IA area, we discussed the workplace applications (in academic and business fields) of skills gained through the English Department's RPC program. Students had an opportunity to ask questions of the panelists as to what types of classes to take, what technical / computer skills to acquire, and what opportunities await them upon graduation. I enjoyed coordinating the event, recruiting the panelists and moderating the discussion; most gratifying in this experience was the appreciation the participants showed for the opportunity to learn more about the fields they were entering.

Seeing the success of our various Web Workshops and wanting to offer additional practical, technical workshops to the ISU community, we decided that another software-oriented seminar would offer participants another opportunity to develop their computer knowledge. I recruited a former student who works extensively with Adobe Photoshop to present an introductory seminar. Not knowing much about Photoshop myself, I simply offered him advice on teaching methods and a way to integrate practice tasks with instruction on using the program. It was a very interesting experience to now be the student of someone I had previously taught; however, this experience did highlight for me that I am always learning from my students in any class I teach, as their knowledge expands my own knowledge base, and my experiences with them offer me new methods of addressing my student audiences.