I have worked and reworked the Interactive / Web 1 class a few times over the last couple of years. It is now the core of my approach to teaching interaction design thinking: I use the foundation of empathic research and altruistic design to push my students to create work that can get them noticed in the job market.
I have the students go through the entire design cycle at a rapid pace so that we have time to also develop our pitches for the last day: I strive to have my students learn not only to think of lovely and useful ideas, but also have the tools to get those ideas made.
In order to help my students really explore motion, I introduce animated gifs as a fast and fun means to get the pump primed. Sometimes, students go CRAZY with them.
And sometimes they go crazy twice.
