Since instructional design and instructional writing are two of my interests (not to mention things I get paid to do), This page lists a few samples of my professional, personal, and academic writing.

Professional

• Programming ActionScript 3.0 – a book for teaching various aspects of the ActionScript 3.0 programming language to both new and experienced programmers. This book is part of the official Adobe documentation for products that use ActionScript, including Flex and Flash; I was one of a team of writers who wrote this book and I wrote it as a contractor and later as a full-time employee of Adobe Systems, Inc.

  My specific contributions include:

  • Lead writer for the second edition of the book (the Flash CS3 release): I was responsible for planning the organization of the book and how new content would be incorporated for that release, as well as mentoring other writers, editing, and working toward consistency across chapters.
  • Chapters: “The External API” (entire chapter), most of the chapter for new programmers “Getting started with ActionScript 3.0,” and about half of the chapter on Display programming.
  • Programming examples and their accompanying descriptions, including those in the chapters on Arrays, Event handling, Working with Bitmaps, and Filtering visual objects.
• Macromedia Flash 8 Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide – published by Peachpit Press.
• Flash: ActionScript Programming – instructional materials I wrote in 2005 for my then-employer. The intended audience for these materials is learners with basic Flash experience but little programming experience. (Available on request on a limited basis only.)

Personal

• The documentation for my open-source XML-RPC Client Library for ActionScript (project details).
• The tutorials on this web site. The most well-regarded ones are ‘Select all checkboxes’ in ColdFusion Flash Forms and Getting type checking with ActionScript arrays.

Academic

• “Interaction: What is it, and how can I include it in online instruction?” (50 kb PDF) – I wrote this paper As a graduate student at Indiana University’s School of Education, as part of a course ”R685: Instructional Strategies for Distance Education.” Naturally I wrote several papers as a graduate student. However this one was selected for inclusion in a “showcase” of outstanding student work, and has been recommended by professors, cited in other publications, used in courses, and so forth. Dr. Michael Molenda, professor of the course, says this about the paper: “I have referred many people to that paper to find a rigorous discussion and definition of ‘interaction’ in Distance Education.”