Web Programming at PATHS

For those of you heading to DevKitME this summer, you can download a trial version of Visual Studio here.  It’s good for 90 days, which will last you through the summer.

Eric found this as an idea for a PATHSFEST game (for those who aren’t doing the 3D game programming with Alice):

http://www.utrecht.nl/images/OGU/pos/Downloads/TheBlob_EN.zip

Awards and Graduation are suddenly here!  Awards will be given out tomorrow (Tuesday).  Second year students will have a short marching practice on Thursday, and Graduation is on Friday.

Please dress nicely.  Please remind your parents to come!

I’ve written a little app to use for awards voting.  Awards Day is next Tuesday, 5/13.  Click here to vote.

For those students who will be receiving awards, I will be sending e-mail to you and your parents.

The information on summer studies at the Maine College of Art (located inPortland) is on the bulletin board.  Please take a look if you’re interested.

I’ve put a bunch of information from Full Sail on the back table.  Please take a look if you’re interested.  There will be a representative from Full Sail here on Friday to give a presentation and answer questions.

I just wrote a little waitlist program to help me keep track of who needs help. Please use it during class time. You can find it here:
http://172.25.128.74/valerie/waitlist/

DevKit is a 2-week camp on game programming, to be held July 28 - August 8 at Zero Station in Portland. If you’re interested, please get on the mailing list! You can find more information here: http://www.devKitME.org/. Send e-mail to Wade Brainerd telling him you’re from my class and that you’re interested in devKitME.

Wade works for Activision Software. Notice that Activision is blocked by Portland Schools, so it must be good!

If you’re interested in applying to the New England School of Communications, you might want to check out the Open House next weekend (3/22/08). There’s more info here:
http://nescom.edu/content/62/Open_House/

You can sign up online, and you can even schedule an admissions interview for that day. If you apply before 3/22/08, they will waive your appication fee.

Next year’s course descriptions are now here! Course numbers will likely change.

September 2008-January 2009
WP103 – Standards-Based Web Design and Development

Open up a Web page and select View->Source from your browser menu. Do you understand the code? After taking this course, you will. Say goodbye to old table- and frameset-based layouts and say hello to modern, flexible design techniques using CSS! After taking this course, you will be fluent in HTML and CSS, and will have experience applying principles of graphic design and layout to make Web pages that look good in a variety of Web browsers and have solid code underneath. Week-long instructional segments covering software programs such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks, PhotoShop, and Flash will make you familiar with these tools of the trade. Basic knowledge of FTP commands will also be covered for transferring your files to and from Web servers.

Prerequisite: none

January 2009-June 2009
WP104 – Dynamic Web Application Development

If you already know how to write stylish Web pages with clean code, take your skills to the next level by adding MySQL and PHP to your personal toolkit. Want to write online registration applications, message boards, shopping carts, or other applications that require a database on the back end? This is the course for you. You’ll learn the basics of adding, deleting, and accessing data in a MySQL database, and you’ll learn to use PHP (a standard Web application language) to pull data from a database and transform it into styled HTML. Experience with common software design patterns in PHP programming and SQL queries will allow you to apply what you learn to future programming projects. You’ll also set up a test server using Apache, MySQL and PHP, and learn how to set up domains and subdomains on a hosted server.

Prerequisite: WP103 or permission from the instructor.