Molly Holzschlag on the need for quality education

Molly Holzschlag on the need for quality education

• In: Uncategorized
• By: maxine
• July 31st, 2006

Continuing on in our “one question” interview series I asked Molly for her view. Maybe it’s a bit self serving on my part but I love her answer because it’s exactly what I would say myself.

In the areas that interest you about the web, what has changed the most in the last couple of years, and what do you see changing most in the next couple?

The need for quality education is clearly becoming the most difficult issue in our field to address effectively and consistently.

While the logic and benefits of Web standards has finally made it into the consciousness of today’s competitive Web professional, the realities in terms of actual practice are a different issue.

With massive confusion in the browser market; a significant learning curve with CSS and accessibility concepts, tools and techniques; companies applying old ideas to a new medium; and inconsistent information filling the bookstore shelves and college classrooms, it’s easy to see that the problem isn’t going to be fully addressed any time soon.

It takes efforts such as Web Directions to give people world over a leg up in terms of knowing what’s the latest, where to go for the best resources, and to get information that’s not only quality, but most up-to-date. While conferences cannot take the place of ongoing learning and experience, they certainly can go a far way to provide people with a fantastic checkpoint for their own learning process, expose them to new ideas, and perhaps most importantly - expand their social network to include supportive and knowledgeable friends and colleagues.

I’m not very good at predicting the future, but that’s one thing I know won’t change: being a true Web professional today means embracing lifelong learning. Those that do are sure to succeed.

We work in an industry which is noteworthy for its lack of formal educational/career pathways as well as standardised certification and industry associations. This is natural in the early days of any industry when best practices have not yet in fact been settled on. But we are moving away from that now. I think spending money on education in our industry has been sidelined in the same way as visual designers have. It will be interesting to see what will emerge as things crystallise and the environment in which we work becomes increasingly reliable.