<img class="alignright" title="Follow the bouncing web instructor" src="/images/teaching/bouncing_www.gif" alt="Follow the bouncing web instructor" width="200" height="100" />"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

Let me modify <a title="George Bernard Shaw" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw">George Bernard Shaw</a>'s famous quip[1. Or it might have been H. L. Mencken, depending on who you ask.]: "Those who can, do; those who can, but unfortunately can't because they're spending most of their working hours managing and meeting with others, teach."

Well, that's how I sometimes think about it. Maybe I'm being cynical, but here's the story:

Despite having over a decade of experience in web site development, I felt my  days of being a manager were slowly bleeding me dry of my expertise. Granted, I was learning an entirely new skill set, one that many deftly describe as "herding cats", but in the meantime I was falling behind the times when it came to technological trends. Finally,  I decided to put a stop to it, and volunteered to assist <a title="Professor David Heitmeyer" href="http://www.facebook.com/david.heitmeyer">Professor David Heitmeyer</a> in teaching his class, the “<a title="Fundamentals of Web Site Development" href="http://www.extension.harvard.edu/courses/csci.jsp#e-12">Fundamentals of Web Site Development</a>”. I figured it would force myself to keep myself up-to-date, and I was right.

Two years later, I continue to teach when I can, for it keeps my knowledge fresh, my curiosity satiated. I often wish I had time to teach more subjects [2. A co-worker and I are thinking of putting together a JavaScript class--because we're convinced we can ignore the need to sleep for several months.] simply because I would learn so much more. Alas, there are only 24 hours in a day, one-third of which I sleep through.

This semester, I've decided to try something different: I'm sharing my teaching experience online. If you go to the "<a title="Teaching" href="/teaching-home/">Teaching</a>" pages within my site, you can follow my instructional exploits. Every week, I'll post a small summary of what I taught in my class, and I'll attach the slide decks I'm creating for my students.