Journal 9

Here we are... the final journal entry. I really cannot believe this day is here and my time in the program is over. I have learned so much this past year and a half, and I am excited to see how I can put my degree to use in the coming years.

On My Work...
My client is thrilled with her website, so if my client is happy, I am happy! I am proud of the elements of design in my project. For someone who used to think Comic Sans was an acceptable font, I have come a long way in my design abilities. From my research and readings, I feel I have a greater understanding of design.

On What I Have Learned...
Even though I did not stick with Dreamweaver for the project, I still feel I learned a good deal about the software this semester. I now feel able to create a basic website, and I have a much deeper understanding for file management and HTML. This will definitely come in handy in the future. I have an LSTC job prospect for next year, and one of the things the TST specifically mentioned was the ability to create a school website. I also enjoyed learning WordPress; it's relatively simple but produces a well-designed product.

On Where I'm Going...
Your guess is as good as mine! Like I mentioned, there's a possibility I may be able to find an LSTC position for next year. If not, I'll stay where I am, as I'm REALLY enjoying teaching K-5 students technology-integrated projects. I have Higher Ed in my sights (doing a project with Gretchen Thomas' EDIT 2000 students next semester) and also keeping an eye on the business world. Who knows where I'll take my new-found experiences and qualification.

As I close my final Studio reflection post, I want to truly thank you, Dr. Kopcha, as well at Dr. Clinton, Dr. Reiber, and the rest of the IDD faculty for a great experience this past year and a half. I will keep in touch!!

Journal 8

Wow... I can't believe we're already at the next-to-last journal posting. This semester has really flown by!

I am still at the same point with my project: pretty much done with some minor modifications necessary by next week. My client is really excited about her site (She said, "I feel like a legitimate photographer now!"), and I am pleased with how it has turned out. I think it looks professional, serves its purpose, and has some good design elements!

I've really had to push myself with design this semester. I do NOT have an eye for design, so it is something I've had to pay close attention to. The Krause book, Pinterest, and Google searches have all served as good resources for design.

At the dress rehearsal, I had a good response to my project. The people who stopped by had the same suggestions for me as the changes I had already intended to make. I also realized while showing off the site that one of my plug-ins was not functioning as intended, so I have to take some time to figure out what it going wrong. Love those technical difficulties!

As far as my service hours go:
2 hours- Setting up for and carrying out my first Technology/Yearbook Club meeting. This was the "Orientation" meeting, so we made some decisions about the yearbook, brainstormed page ideas, and looked at the yearbook interface.
3 hours- Photographing the Outdoor Classroom Cleanup day with students! My Technology/Yearbook Club students joined me, so I taught them how to use the digital camera, talked some quick photography tips (taking a mix of candid shots and posed, varieties of angles, etc.), and monitored their picture-taking. They had a blast, and you should see some of the goofy self-portraits that ended up on my SD card!
1 hour- Had our second Technology/Yearbook Club meeting. This time, I got FLIP cameras in their hands and let them loose! Not really... we had the general guideline that we were making a PSA about using manners, and we split into teams. They had so much fun!

Total Service Hours: 12 hours

A fun Pinterest find...

From: Top Web Design Schools

Journal 7

A teacher at my school sent the staff a link to this article about math self-concept:
To Get Students Interested in Math, Address Their Self-Concept

While the article was not about teaching with technology, the link is simple to make. In the article, the author points out that,

I learned that, regardless of how ‘tough’ some students are or how weak their math skills are, teenagers still love feeling successful when they become good at something or when they figure something out. A sequence of small successes can lead students to develop intrinsic motivation to learn and take risks in a classroom . . .

Isn't it the same with ANY new skill, including technology? Everyone loves to feel successful and hates feeling uncapable. The article goes on to talk about how to teach to address a student's self-concept:

Instead, I began to design my lessons and accompanying student work so that (1) all of my students could successfully complete the first problem or task independently, and in which (2) the sequence of problems/tasks matched my students’ tolerance for challenge and self-concept.

It all sounds like scaffolding to me. While this article touches on building that self-confidence and self-concept in math and taking the words "I can't" out of a student's vocabulary, the same rings true for teaching anyone, young or old, about technology. You have to make lessons where students can achieve and slowly build up their confidence. A child who has never touched a keyboard before can't be expected to create a PowerPoint, so start at the basics. Scaffold and teach to make all students successfull, and as they see that success, their self-confidence in technology (and self-confidence, in general!) will skyrocket. It just takes patience and scaffolding.

While this article and journal was not about design in the aesthetic sense, it is very much about the instructional design process. I have had to scaffold myself this semester, not overwhelming myself and expecting myself to learn the complicated before the basics. Especially with Dreamweaver, I had to take it step-by-step and learn the foundational elements before I could begin the complicated. Through this process, I have found myself building a self-concept in both web design and the design principles that I did not have before, and it has resulted in a higher self-confidence level in these two areas.

Journal 6

Not too much to update at this point. I've spent the past 2 weeks working through difficulties with adding images to the website. The template's Gallery option didn't work as I wanted, so I had to find a plug-in that met my needs. Once I picked the plug-in (Next Gen Gallery), I had to figure out how to make it display properly within the template. There were some frustrating moments, but I feel like it works now! I'm at somewhat of a halt at the moment; I have the website looking the way I want it with the information I've been given. It's very close to being completely finished and is just lacking a bit of information from my client. She just got home from a cruise, so I'm giving her a bit of settling in time before I bug her about these last couple of elements.

Thinking of our reading for this week, The Nature and Origin of Instructional Objects, I was able to connect most with Pillar 1:

Interactions between teacher and learner require clear communication and presentation of information. A learner-centered take on instruction would make sure the learner-as-individual gets a good message, presented in a clear way, suited to his or her prior knowledge and learning preferences, with lots of opportunities to use the new information in practice. Thus the teacher-learner relationship can rely heavily on cognitive learning psychology to achieve good transmission of information.

All of the elements listed for Pillar 1 (Cognitive Load, Instructional Guidance, Schemas, etc.) reminded me of the learner-centered "guided" teaching that has been pushed in the recent years. Guided Reading seems to have been a cornerstone of good reading instruction in the past years, but recently, there has also been a push toward Guided Math, and now I'm hearing Guided Science and Guided Social Studies. The guided teaching principles match the elements of Pillar 1, in that it is all about individualized instruction that directly meets the student's needs in a way that best appeals to each student. These instructional techniques are directly in line with cognitive psychology, but do they include any elements of the other three pillars? Yes, I agree that it is important to teach a child at his or her own instructional level, but with 100% of the focus being on these guided instructional techniques, are we leaving out the other 3 pillars?

Journal 5

Over the course of this project so far, I have found myself stuck on a handful of occasions simply because I am lacking some of the background knowledge necessary to build a photographer's website. I'm not a photographer [trust me, you should see the pictures currently on my point-and-shoot!], so I do not always know what items are most important to photographers.

So, this week, I took a different approach to my "readings" and selected two photography website "guides" that offered some tips when creating a photography website.

Here are the links:
Five Great Photography Homepage Design Tips
Ten Photography Portfolio Website Tips from a Web Designer

These two articles provided some helpful tips pertinent to the creation of Jessica Nicole Photography's website. I especially enjoyed the first article because, much like the Krause book, it provided an example of a "good" design and explained why certain features work on the site. From the first article, the most critical lesson I learned:

"What I mean by this in the context of your homepage is that you should be selecting a few of your absolute best images and featuring them BIG. We are photographers so we want our work to be at the forefront of our potential clients’ minds and this is a great way to do it." 

I had been struggling with this idea. Previously, the images on the front page were moderately sized. Reading this quote, though, emphasized to me that the images on the front of the site need to be prominent. This is, after all, a photography website, and what better way to attract potential clients than to show off her amazing photography?

From the second article, I got a bit more of a general web design tip that I hadn't considered:

"If all you have on your site is a title and photos, there won’t be enough text for Google to place you high in search results.  The best tip for improving your photography site’s SEO is to add Alt and Title tags to EACH PHOTO YOU USE!  These tags are meta tags that you can add to a photo so Google knows what is represented in the photo."

I had never heard of SEO until these two articles, but it makes perfect sense. The whole purpose of Jessica's website is to attract new clients and give her a web presence. This means that her site needs to be searchable on Google or any other search engine. As a result of this, I have gone back and added additional tags on the photos included in the site, and I will continue to do so. The more keywords I put in the title or tags of the photos, the better chance the site has of showing up in a Google search.

All in all, reading these two articles gave me a fresh perspective on creating photography websites, and I feel I come away from these articles with some good, key ideas I can implement on Jessica's website.

Journal 4

At this point, I am in a good rhythm with my project. I have the basic layout ready, and I am familiarizing myself more with the Wordpress system layout and modifying CSS to fit my needs. Right now, I am awaiting information from my client. I asked her to select some of her favorite photographs for the galleries, and once I receive those from her, I will be able to put the images into the site and ensure the slideshows work as intended. After that step, I will have to get her "filler" information for each of the pages.

As I have been working, I have been struggling with design. I do not have a natural eye for design; it takes careful consideration for me to determine what is visually appealing. So, making a website for such a visual business (photography) where design is important has been difficult. I have found myself referring to many different design sources, especailly the Design Basics Index. One aspect of the book that helped me this week was the section on Harmony. "Visual echo is achieved through clear correlations between the colors, styles, content and typographic elements of a design" (Krause, p. 54). That page also gives the example of a postcard with an image of a flower, and the colors in the postcard match the colors in the image. I used this idea in the creation of the website; I have focused my color choices on those in Jessica Nicole Photography's logo:

I asked my client to give me the specifics on color- the exact codes for each color used in her logo. This has helped me to match the colors exactly on the site, and it has made for a more cohesive look to the site.

(Of course, my lack of design intuition is highly hilarious given that I will be creating my school's yearbook this year. This may be a true test of my design abilities!!)

Referenes:

Krause, J. (2004). Design basics index. Cincinnati, Ohio: HOW Design Books.