Design Matters
This presentation by Dean Shareski talked about design elements and how they make a presentation meaningful and beautiful. Mr. Shareski states that creativity, design and learning should be inseparable.
The design elements discussed were planning, imagery, use of whitespace & transitions, constraints and innovation. I agree with the author when he states that planning does matter and is extremely important to a presentation. Storyboarding was the first element discussed and is a great tool to use with younger students to give them a clear picture or purpose to their projects. Written scripts is another tool that we use to help students focus and frame ideas for effective communication with presentations such as podcasts. He talked about imagery and how our world is becoming more visual. Students love to use pictures in their projects but need to be taught how to use images to support their ideas in the text. Images are to supplement the writing and students many times get carried away with this part. Visual literacy is a topic to be taught to all for their projects. Flickr was suggested as a good resource for photos rather than clip art and to help avoid copyright issues.
The project that I will take away from this presentation is the student projects using four slides or pictures to create a biography about themselves. I would like to do this project several time throughout the school year and note the differences. What a great way to get students to edit their work and focus on the main ideas to be presented.
Contrary to what was suggested here, I do like to use template with students when starting new projects. I know this limited creativity or personal touch but with elementary ages students it helps to bring focus and save time
Design does matter and we cannot forget to talk about the various elements that will make student and professional project better.
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