25 Fun & Creative Web Designs From DeviantArt | Spyre Studios How many web designers can say that there are too many places to draw inspiration from? Exactly. None. Inspiration is welcomed from high and low, far and wide. Sure, there are css galleries you can check out, or even other designers portfolios you may be friends with on twitter or other social media websites, but what about DeviantArt ? I have taken the time to gather some of the best, most creatively designed websites from users on the site and put them together in this list of 25 Fun & Creative Web Designs. Some of the popular elements in the designs below include: Trees & leaves Light blurs Cartoon characters Realistic animals Water Sky/clouds So sit back, relax, and get inspired! Bird House ↓ Bonza ↓ Creative Flu ↓ Deewater ↓ Designers Junior ↓ Designers Weblog ↓ Detskiy ↓ Feartox ↓ Garden First Aid ↓ Iihe ↓ Imagine Air ↓ Insurances ↓ Kempes ↓ Kindergarten ↓ Kosmos Travel ↓ Lion City ↓ Panda Sofas ↓ Portfolio ↓ Private Planes ↓ Some Web ↓ Sports Deluxe ↓ Tateljee ↓ Web Agency Web Design ↓ Zoom ↓
Resurrect computer science – but don't kill off ICT | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional Michael Gove recently labelled the current provision of ICT in English schools as "dull' and argued, schools should have the freedom to teach computer science. The education secretary's speech came after a Royal Society report which mentioned that computing science is seen as a subject about basic digital literacy skills such as how to use a word-processor or a database. Much is wrong with ICT lessons in schools. This is beyond doubt. The subject is taught predominantly by non-specialists and involves the mastery of skills required in the 1990s (when the programme of study was originally put together). This was a world before broadband, social networks, tablets and smartphones. The work of the Royal Society is undoubtedly an attempted rebranding exercise for computer and digital-related areas in schools. Much has been done in the area of digital literacy that could be of great benefit to schools.
Informative And Usable Footers In Web Design | Design Showcase Advertisement Website designs have so many different elements that work together to convey information in a usable and organized manner. For a website to be effective, every element on the page, from the header to the footer, needs to add to its overall usability and readability. In this article, we’ll take a look at the footer and see what exactly makes for a good website footer. We’ll look here at what to include in footers, the importance of site maps, usability practices and styling ideas and trends. What To Include In Footers Before we go over how exactly to design the footer, let’s talk about common elements to include in footers and the importance of each. Site Map Usability is foremost in importance in Web design. In the site map below, visited pages show up differently than the other links. Quick “About” or “Contact” Information This is a good idea for freelancer portfolios, business websites and other similar websites. Be sure to make the information brief, though. Styling Footers
Educators and Stagecast Creator Shortcut to the Education price list and ordering information. How do students benefit as they create and modify simulations, visualizations, stories and games? They build higher-order thinking skills.They become more engaged in the learning process.They develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter.They score higher on standardized tests. In addition to the general information on this Web site about Stagecast Creator, we have resources specifically geared to educators, to help you get started: See Simulations that Teachers and Students Have CreatedSee what it's like to use Creator: See a Demonstration: Watch a video demonstration or take the guided tour. Read about us to learn about Stagecast itself. We hope you enjoy using Stagecast Creator! Stagecast Creator runs on Mac OS X (including Intel Macs), Windows 7, Vista, XP, and other popular operating systems. The approved SMART Software Accreditation logo is a trademark of SMART Technologies.
15 jQuery Plugins For A Better Photo Gallery And Slideshow Photo Gallery, picture gallery, or slideshow are the best way to showcase your images/photos to your readers. There are a lot of different methods to create them and today we are going to look into different jQuery plugins that can be used to create a better photo gallery. 1. GalleryView aims to provide jQuery users with a flexible, attractive content gallery that is both easy to implement and a snap to customize. 2. Pikachoose is a lightweight Jquery plugin that allows easy presentation of photos with options for slideshows, navigation buttons, and auto play. 3. Galleria is a javascript image gallery written in jQuery. 4. Galleriffic was inspired by Mike Alsup’s Cycle plugin, but with performance in mind for delivering a high volume of photos. 5. Supersized is an image gallery built by BuildInternet.com and it is able to slideshows the images with full screen. 6. slideViewer 7. Easy Slider (as I call this plugin) enables images or any content to slide horizontally or vertically on click.
Environments for Teaching Kids to Program and Explorer the World Through Code Mark Verber September 2006 / Minor Update Oct 2007 -- needs more about AgentSheet, Alice, Ruby, and Scratch My ten year old daughter asked me to help her learn to program. It's not that she's interested in computer science, it's that she knows that programming is required to create games and other things that she has imagined. I investigated a multitude of languages / environments. Scratch or Logo for simple projects and younger kids. I decided that Squeak was best option for my daughter, especially using the ReadyPC environment from Squeak: Learning to Program with Robots and that it had an Alice like Wonderland environment. The Search Years ago I was inspired by the book Mindstorms which made the case to use computers as a tool for students to explore and learn rather than merely an automated tool for rout memorization or for teaching computer science. I spend some time trying to find what languages / environments and curriculum were being successfully used with kids. Logo Resources
15 Awesome tutorials and resources for web developers A new week is coming and in this post I want to suggest you some interesting tutorials and resources for web developers I bookmarked this week. If you want to suggest a link, please leave a comment.1. InfoVis ToolkitThe JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit provides tools for creating Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web. It supports multiple data representations: treemaps, radial layouts, hypertrees/graphs, spacetree-like layouts, and more. 2. Vaadin is a Java framework for building modern web applications that look great, perform well and make your user happy. 3. 4. Uploadify is a jQuery plugin that allows the easy integration of a multiple (or single) file uploads on your website. 5. 6. FullCalendar is a jQuery plugin that provides a full-sized, drag & drop calendar like the one below. 7. 8. This tutorial illustrates how to implement an amazing music player using mouse gestures & hotkeys in jQuery. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. epiClock 15.
Creative Computing Resources From the Creative Computing educator workshop, a compilation of presentations, activities, and handouts for cultivating computational thinking and computational creativity in your classroom. In collaboration with Google's CS4HS initiative, this annual summer workshop for middle-school and high-school teachers explores new educational technologies and instructional strategies to engage students in creative design activities -- and, in the process, help students develop as computational thinkers and computational creators. The three-day workshop was designed by Mitch Resnick and Karen Brennan around four core ideas about learning experiences (designing, personalizing, collaborating, reflecting), with the intention of providing teachers the same opportunities for learning that we imagine for their students. Activities/Resources: Introductory presentation - Mitch Resnick's introductory presentation at the 2010 Creative Computing/CS4HS workshop hosted at the MIT Media Lab.
51 Web Apps for Web Designers and Developers – Web.AppStorm Web design and development has significantly changed over the years, as have the tools and technologies involved. With these advancements come tools to make our lives easier, provide higher quality work and better services for our clients. Communication and collaboration over vast distances is no longer painfully frustrating (or impossible) and project or task management is now easier than ever. Web designers and developers can also jump on virtually any internet connected computer with a modern browser to get work done without their main desktop applications. Wireframe, design, test, develop, deploy and so much more, straight from the web. Here are 51 web apps to make web designer’s and developer’s lives easier than ever and crank up their capabilities. Splashup Splashup With Splashup you have more than basic image editing capabilities at your fingertips, anywhere you go. Price: Free Requires: Flash Link: Aviary Aviary Pixlr Pixlr Photoshop.com Photoshop.com Adobe kuler
Resources : NCWIT Resources : Programs-in-a-Box : Computer Science-in-a-Box Computer Science-in-a-Box: Unplug Your Curriculum introduces fundamental building blocks of computer science -- without using computers. Use it with students ages 9 to 14 to teach lessons about how computers work, while addressing critical mathematics and science concepts such as number systems, algorithms, and manipulating variables and logic. NCWIT is pleased to offer Computer Science-in-a-Box: Unplug Your Curriculum in cooperation with the authors of Computer Science Unplugged. So unplug your computer, and get ready to explore computer science! Computers are everywhere. Computer Science-in-a-Box: Unplug Your Curriculum introduces fundamental building blocks of computer science -- without using computers. Presenting these activities to your students will allow them to: You don't have to be a computer expert to enjoy learning these principles with your students. Computer Science Unplugged, the curriculum from which these materials are excerpted, was created by Tim Bell, Ian H.
How To Use Help Elements To Improve Your Designs | Design Showcase Advertisement When designing a website, the most important thing is to make it as usable and convenient as possible. On a website on which users could possibly get confused, it is best to include help elements. Help elements come in all different shapes and sizes: an entire page, a suggestion box or a quick tip. With the number of forms, search functions and other navigational elements on websites these days, using them can occasionally become confusing for some users. Below is a compilation of best practices for help elements, an explanation of when to use them and a showcase of excellent help elements. You may also be interested in the following related posts: When To Include A Help Element Convenience is key to a website, and going the extra mile to make a website more convenient can go a long way. 1. 2. The form below is nicely laid out; it’s clean and has good explanations of each form element. 3. 4. What To Include Quick Tips One type of help element is “tips.” Usability Is The Key