A quick lunch, some networking and then off to more sessions.

…
Bryan Hantman - University of Maryland

Bryan starts with a fairly intensive, textbook explination of what web standards are. Desperatly trying to stay awake… “And then in 1999 we thought about the idea of future compatability”, Zzzzzzzzzz…

“So then Eric Myer came along”, Snork…. huh, what? Oh, time to wake back up! Here come some great example. Look at that clean code. Check out the rapid download time and better search engine optimazations. He really has improved the University of Maryland’s site. It looks about the same, but everything from updating to accessibility has improved. I do however, have a few questions to ask at the end.

Keynote just started. The presenter, Todd Markelz looks like a 15-year-old stuffed into a suit - though I doubt that I would look good up there right now. Need more coffee…

The keynote got got much better as it went on. Todd appeared to get more comfortable and sited some great comparisons between google and higher ed. In many ways, our current website is more advanced then much of google’s static pages, which currently lack standards for accessibility. He ended by speaking about the 2001 HighEdWebDev (his first), where the presenter was Eric Myer. That would have been great to see.