The Communications Technology program at York College has been priveledged to have Najlah Feanny Hicks teaching for our program. Najlah is a photojournalist and founder of Do1Thing and Design for Social GOOD. Najlah currently does most of her work with non-profits. She has helped assemble and inspire 150 photographers to raise awareness for foster children in need of help.

Last semester (Fall 2011) Najlah came aboard the CT ship, teaching CT 360 Principles of Web Publishing. Here is how she describes the course:

Web Design I is a class that will be useful in virtually every other class you take within Digital Design. The web is at the forefront of business today and it is essential for all designers to have a clear understanding of how a web page is constructed. From self-promotion to communication to design solutions, understanding web design and coding will be the bedrock for future work HTML, XHTML, interactivity, information architecture and navigational structures will be covered, as well as usability and Web design strategies. Your final project will be the completion of a portfolio web site.

This semester (Spring 2012) she is teaching both CT 360 and CT 381 Advanced Web Design. Here is her description:

This course is designed to build on the skills learned in Web Design 1. The focus of the class will be two-fold: First, on the development of advanced technical skills, and second, on seeing a professional Web site project through from start to finish, using best practices for development process, standards-compliant code, and strong design.

One of the new practices for all classes in the program is to host courses on the open web. Students are required to purchase a commercial web hosting account, upon which their course work will be placed.

This semester, for the Web design 2 course, students will be, “building … websites for nonprofits throughout the US and the world, including nonprofits in Africa and India as part of their final projects. The nonprofits work in the areas of hunger, poverty, homelessness, aids and issues affecting children.” This idea of having students do real world work before they have even left the college is akin to an internship minus the role of understudy, and I believe it will influence other courses in the future.

Thanks for joining the CT team Najlah, we are glad to have you aboard.