EDU 642 Week 3: Reflection

When I was creating my work this week, I really focused on the coherence principle and the signaling principle from Mayer, as well as Gestalts similar visuals and content. I also made sure to look for elements that might look “off” in my designs. I tried to make them look coherent by adding the same fonts, themes, and colors within my designs. I think by doing this, I was able to create designs that will be beneficial to my learners, but will also be easy to read. While I was creating my visual presentation, I tried to make the slides have a similar format/design. I thought that this would be helpful in letting my learners know what was coming and I was trying to make the information as accessible as possible. I plan to use this visual presentation for my students as a Google Classroom assignment with some form of engagement activity afterwards. My original thought was to just post this presentation, but I think I will add some narration and explanation to the slides to help guide my students even more.

I created my infographic in AdobeSpark, which was a new program for me this week, and I loved all of the possibilities, but I did mention last week in my blog, that there are an overwhelming amount of options as far as text design, color, size, shape, and so much more. Therefore, I tried to make my fonts, colors, and graphics match up and align with each other. When I was creating my infographic, I did struggle with the balance of putting enough information, but not too much that it would be distracting or overwhelming for students. I wanted to make the message clear of the information I wanted my students to understand. I plan to give this information to my students as a resource to help them better understand the migration groups that we study in our next unit of social studies. This is something that my students can also refer back to as we continue to learn about each group.

My step by step visual directions will be VERY helpful for my students. I have tried to have my students watch a video on Discovery Education many times and there are always students that have a hard time getting in to watch the video. Therefore, I thought it would be so helpful to create a graphic that walks through students step by step to get into the video. This will be posted with my directions with the Google Classroom assignment as well as a resource in my Google Classroom. When I created this, I also used AdobeSpark and had a much easier time navigating through on my second time around. I also tried to make this simple and easy to read with graphics that I thought would be necessary for my learners. My original intent was to have screenshots throughout, but that would not fit and I thought it might be too much. But I think my final product turned out well and I am excited to use it with my students to help avoid confusion.

When I was designing my synchronous lesson, I wanted to make sure that it was engaging for my students, I found through virtual teaching that it is very easy to lose them, but I also wanted to make sure it was simple for my students to follow with not too many links or other materials to use because I think that is also another good way to get students distracted or confused quickly. I ultimately decided to just use our online version of our math curriculum book and a Chrome extension that lets me draw and write right on screen. This way, students don’t have to open up another link while following along with me. I also wanted to make use of the new updates on Google Meet like the polls feature to get feedback on students’ work as well as the questions and answers where students can ask questions freely. I will use this math lesson approach in my future virtual synchronous class meetings as we have just moved to all virtual teaching until November 30th.

Ultimately, I had fun creating these pieces for my classroom and the thing that I took away from this the most is to make sure that it is accessible and easy to read for my students instead of focus on it being so “pretty.” I feel like before this program, when I created content for my students, I wanted it to look so cute. Now I feel like I am trying to find that balance of looking visually pleasing and inviting and using the design principles, while making sure that I am thinking about the content I am trying to teach and if it is being presented in a way that will help my students learn, too. After reading about technology use and access from the infographic, it was surprising to see some of the numbers including 22% do not have the skills to use technology as well as 19% of people do not see it as relevant in their daily lives. I know that the area I teach in is a rural area and switching to online in the spring was a major panic for many of our families because they simply did not have anywhere to get internet because they lived too far out in a rural area. Now, our school has given out many hotspots to our families who don’t have internet access and it has shrunk the gap, but I know we still have a few students who have tried everything, and still cannot get internet access. I am proud of the way my school has tried to make technology accessible for our students. We have even put hotspots in local areas including our library and common places where students live like out by one of our trailer parks in our district. However, I do think there is a long way to go to make the internet accessible for everyone in our district. Overall, I really enjoyed creating these products for my classroom and actively applying the design principles to my designs as well. I came out with four practical products for my students.