At The Alliance Labs we teach web design and development for two main reasons. One reason is to give the student a set of skills that will make them employable. The second reason is empowerment. The reasons why web design and development is empowering are numerous, though three come to mind as most important. They are: demystifying technology, digital literacy, and the agency that comes from publishing on the web.
Most humans on the planet have no idea how the Internet works, or how the World Wide Web works, much less how to be an author of a site on the net. It’s not that hard, but when there is no one there to explain it to you, it might as well be magic. When one of our students learns how web pages work, they know that making their first web page is an achievable task.
Learning how to make a web page gives a student a language to speak with the rest of the digital world. Words like protocol, interaction, responsive, client, and server become clear and once they are used daily, they give the speaker a voice in a global conversation.
Making your first website from scratch is an amazing feeling. Learning how to FTP it up to a server with a unique URL, well, that is like a mini-Gutenbergian revolution every single time. Going from zero to international published author is a very empowering feeling, one that resonates personally and professionally.
Demystifying technology by learning how to make a web page increases digital literacy, giving the student a sense of agency. This is why we do what we do at The Alliance Labs.
Andrew Hicks,
Director of Education