Final MMP Project

Hey everyone! Below is my screencast for my finalized MMP project.

http://kraftclassroom.weebly.com

MMP Reflection

The objective that I had in mind when creating the idea for my MMP was to create an organized website that can help students with missing class and needing make up work. When I was student teaching, absences in my classroom happened at a very high rate. The students would come back to class after missing days of work and asked for the work they missed. I rarely ever received their make-up work, and I did not see any of them borrow notes from their classmates. The website that I created was meant for them to find the make-up assignments there, and set up a means for them to turn in assignments. On the “class materials” tab, there are two different sets of materials provided for the students. There are slideshows of the notes that they missed that day, so they can scroll at their own pace and copy down the notes from there. Also, accompanying the slideshow, are screencasts of the same slideshows. These screencasts, however, contain the lectures that I would give to the students in class. I usually add extra information when presenting the material to the students, so I did not want them to miss any of the information that the other students received.

The role of technology in my project does reflect what we have learned this semester. I wanted to incorporate different aspects from this course that I now have experience with, to expose these means of technology to my students. This was seen through the design principles that were kept in mind when creating the layout of my site, and the importance of and relationship of audio and video to enhance the learning process. Also, the discussion questions being turned in on the website rather than on a piece of paper in school, helps the students familiarize themselves with using technology inside and outside of the classroom.

I feel very accomplished at the end of my project. My final website was created on Weebly after some unfortunate occurrences. I originally looked at Weebly to create my class website on, but I decided to use Google Classroom inside, because I did not think I would have the capabilities to properly design a Weebly site. After making two Google Classrooms, and being removed from both, I only had a week to create my new MMp site. Within that week, I was able to create a site on Weebly; one that I think is better than the one that I had planned on Google Classroom. One of the design principles that I picked up in this course and used on my website was the use of white space. ALthough there are graphics at certain spaces of my site, the overall feel, seems to have a planned simplicity about it due to the white spaces on the different pages.

Since I am not a teacher yet, this website currently does not have a specific purpose. Instead, I see it as more of a guideline of what to use in my future classroom. When I obtain a teaching position, I will most likely upgrade to the Premium version of Weebly to have more capabilities. With the added uses, I would constantly build my website with each unit.The website as it is, is an example of what the website would look like for a specific unit. When I have my own classroom, I plan on having the different units being the different pages. For example, this website discussed the unit of post-Revolutionary War America. With many many units to cover, I would have one page for post-Revolutionary War America, that contains all of the class materials, do-nows, and discussion questions. The other tabs would also contain the different units that we will end up learning throughout the year. The implementation of this site would help keep me organized as a new teacher. The students would be responsible for keeping up with the website as a requirement for their grade. If it ends up being successful, I would share it with my fellow teachers to share and receive tips and advice.

Blog Post #8

For this blog post, I will be providing you guys with my technology toolkit, which contains the different sources or multimedia components that I found best helpful throughout the duration of this class. Yes, I did specifically choose the tools that I found interesting, but I decided to use these ones because I found them to be the most helpful to me. Starting this class, I did not have much design or multimedia tool experience, so I was on the lookout for easy to use tools that can enhance my creations. The different tools included are extremely user friendly, and with some practice, there are high possibilities of becoming very compatible with these tools. This toolkit was used on the site, PearlTrees, which I would thank my classmates for making me aware of this tool.

1. Aviary- Aviary is an easy to use photo editor that allows users to make many changes to the photos that they choose to add. The reason that I chose Aviary was because it was a free editing tool that I would be able to use on the photos that I show my students during lectures. I could highlight the pictures to make it easier for students to examine or crop and blur certain parts of the photos to make clear what the focus of the picture should be.

2. iMovie- iMovie is a video editor that I have used for a couple different reasons. During student teaching, I took a video of myself teaching, however, the total video length was 45 minutes, which was way too long for the 10 minute requirement that I had for my class. I used iMovie, through an app on my phone, to cut out certain parts of the video and create smooth transitions. It can also be used to create vibrant slideshows because you can add fun transitions, sound, and captions.

3. Google Slides- Google Slides might seem like a very basic feature that is very well known, but it is still my go-to slideshow maker. The reason that I like it is because of the accessibility aspect to it. Knowing that I would be able to pull up my slideshow creation on any computer makes me much more confident in my teaching. Also, if you need to upload your slides to a certain website, you can easy download it as a slideshow and upload it from there.

4. Animoto- Animoto is another tool that can be used to create a slideshow of photo. A good use of this would be to create a sort of a "virtual field trip" for your students. If you have visited a certain place, that might be too far or too expensive to bring your students, you can show them all of the pictures that you took so that they can have the visitor experience.

5. Screencast-o-matic- Screencast-o-matic was one f my favorite tools throughout this course. Beforehand, I would see screencasts and think that they were very difficult to create. With this tool, it makes screencasts very simple. You just have to launch the recorder and it simply records what you do. Once you're done, you just save your video as an mp4 and its just as easy as that.

6. Vocaroo- Vocaroo is a tool that can be used to record audio that you create. It is extremely easy to use. The reason that I chose this website it because you can have your students create podcasts that express their opinion on certain topics that are being discussed in the classroom. It can take classroom collaboration and discussion to a whole new level.

7. Weebly- Lastly, Weebly is a tool that helps you design your own website. I ran into trouble on my MMP and had to start from scratch twice, so I decided to switch things up and use Weebly for the website for the project. I found that it is pretty easy to use and has different design templates that gives your site a professional design.

MMP Update #2

Hey everyone, if you want to try out my site, the code for the classroom is pykey68.  

Week 10 Discussion Post, Participation Gap

I am not a full time teacher yet, but the subject field of the participation gap that is existent in schools is a topic that needs to be written about more. As stated in the discussion question, the participation gap is held by students that realize that they do not have the same opportunities, resources, and/or knowledge, which then then use to form a low self-worth or have issues with identity. The decreased value of themselves that they see, in turn, affects there participation in school or halts their drive to succeed. Many factors can be prevalent in an issue such as one like this, however, since this is a web-design course, we can talk about how technology can play a role in this.

I only have two different teaching experiences, one was during my practicum in a diverse middle class area with a very high access to technology, and my student teaching in a similar district demographically, just with less access to technology. My practicum classroom, was a middle school classroom where each student was given their own Chromebook and participated digitally in the teacher's Google Classroom website. The class I student taught in had a projector in the classroom, and had access to computer labs if the teacher reserved the lab for particular dates.

The middle school students I taught were very proficient in technology at such a young age. They new how to download documents, annotate pdfs on the computer, conduct research, and understand the workings of Google Classroom. I am not too sure if all the high school students in my student teaching experience were able to do the same. Most of them did know how to use certain google apps, and conduct basic research. Although they did not have their own personal computers in the classroom, I think they were pretty knowledgeable in digital literacy mainly due from their personal experiences with smartphones, laptops, and other devices.

Although the students from my student teaching did not have as many resources in the classroom, they still had enough resources out of school that they were able to participate in the classroom. However, what about the students that do not have those resources inside or outside of the classroom? What if a school cannot afford computers for the students, and families cannot afford to have laptops? This can affect those students in the long run. Students who might not have the resources outside of school might not have the right skill set to keep up inside a classroom. On the other hand students without any resources that others have might have difficulty in the future when it comes to aspects like getting into college, or getting a job. The reason for that is mainly because since they do not have the resources, they do not have the experience using them. So when they get into the job market or into a college class, that student can fall behind. For this reason, educators must find a way to close this participation/educational gap. This is why we need creative teachers in districts that might have a lot of resources, because they can have the students build their critical thinking and inquiry skills that can help them face the challenges that they have ahead and overcome them.

Blog Post #7

The topic of copyright is a very important issue to discuss whether it is for the blog posts for this course or in the actual teaching process. At times throughout this course, the directions called for us to use non-copyrighted images for our videos. I appreciated that in our directions because it helped me find out how to find materials and images that are free from copyright that would be very useful to use. Despite having some experience during this course, I still need to learn about teachers and copyrighted materials because I want to be able to optimize the classroom by using materials, however, I do not want to get into any trouble while doing so.

In order to learn more, I used some resources from "Five-Minute Film Festival: Copyright and Fair Use for Educators." The first resource that I decided to use was "YouTube Copyright Basics." I was drawn to this resource mainly because of the title. During my student teaching experience, I tried to incorporate YouTube videos into my lectures to keep the students engaged and interested. After reading that title, I am curious to see if I had violated any copyrights while doing so. However, after watching the video, I quickly realized that simply showing any YouTube videos would not violate the copyright laws. Those laws mainly deal with creating the videos that go onto the site. The resource was actually pretty entertaining and could be used by people of all ages, even students. The copyright laws were explained by two puppets and the video used humor to explain the laws, thus making it more interesting. This technique took information that could be viewed as "boring" and really communicated it in a way that was explained simply and effectively. I would definitely recommend this video to those who want to learn more.

This can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp1Jn4Q0j6E&list=PLvzOwE5lWqhTbOCIFp_OxsN6nC-l20kMT&index=4

For the text resource from the list, I chose was "Teaching Copyright" which can be found on teaching copyright.org. I originally wanted to use a resource that discussed that told teachers about copyright laws and the materials that they use in their classrooms. Unfortunately, those links were broken, so instead, I picked the only other think with "teach" in the title since the YouTube video already gave me the basics of copyright laws. The basis of the site is not really completely applicable unless you are teaching copyright laws to your students, because it provides a curriculum for you to use to do so. However, there is a resources tab found on the site that can be helpful. As a visitor to the site, you can click on the links that would have been giving to the students, and learn about copyright that way. For example, they have copyright cases, videos, podcasts, and history information available. This is very important because as a teacher you want to be able to use resources in your classroom, however, at the same time, you do not want to take any credit from anyone else's work. This can be a subject you bring up to your students before you assign any projects or research papers to them.

This can be found at: https://www.teachingcopyright.org/about.html

MMP Update #1

Check out my MMP Update for this week!

Blog #6 Mini Art School

Part 1

Hey everybody! As finding out during this week's reading and videos, the MMP calls for me to create a storyboard. I find the concept of a storyboard pretty interesting, especially after seeing the examples that were used. I was worried that they needed to be very detailed pictures or descriptions completely mapped out, however, it is quite the opposite. I found out that having it sloppy can actually be better in the long run because it allows for more imagination down the road. I decided to handwrite my storyboard because I felt like it give me more opportunities to put down the vision that I saw in my head. I thought that the pictures would be boring if drawn literally, so I decided to put a little creative twist into my pictures. I apologize in the advance for the drawings and my messiness towards the end.

Part 2
To create a visual for multimodality, I decided to create a moving media production with the help of iMovie. I took free stock images from Stocksnap.io and unsplashed.com since they do not have any licensing issues. I wanted to show the beauty of multimodality and movement, so this is what I came up with (Sorry for the corniness):

MMP Proposal

           When I think back to my student teaching last Fall, one of the main issues that I faced was student absences and how it affected student learning. There were a few students who would frequently miss days of school at a time and I would have to try to gather everything that they missed, and trust that they would do the worksheets on their own time. Then some students would just miss one day, but could be stuck behind for a whole week. I was a bit overwhelmed during my student teaching, but I knew that I needed to find a better system for students obtaining any missed work, while also trying to catch up to the rest of the class.

           Using my student teaching experience, I want to create a Google Classroom site for my future classes. Although I am currently not teaching, for my MMP project, I will make a Google Classroom site as if I was student teaching again or have my own classroom. On this site, I will have artifacts accessible for each week. Any worksheets or supplemental materials that we used in class, I will upload it to the website for students to obtain when they are not able to make it into school. However, I want to take it another step further. This site could also serve as another resource students can use to practice the material or work with the lessons outside of the classroom. Along with the materials, I will also upload recordings of me explaining certain topics, or any videos, pictures, or presentations that can help students get back on track.

           This Google Classroom site will be designed for my future students is my high school social studies classroom. With that being said, I will assume that the students are somewhat familiar with the material on the site, as well as having some experience in operating certain Google applications, or at least something similar. If they have knowledge on at least something like Google Docs, we can help them understand how to use Google Classroom.

           My personal learning objectives are to familiarize myself with the different uses and features of Google Classroom enough to teach it to my future students. Also, while doing so, I will work on gaining skill and experience in other technologies, such as voice recordings, probably Vocaroo, and other sites that allow me to create slideshows, documents, and even videos that I would be uploading to the Google Classroom site. So along with vocaroo, I will utilize other features on Google, such as Google docs, slides, and drive.
         I really want to utilize the experiences that I received from our class to put this into action. Whether its using Web tools that I reviewed and played around with or the ones from my classmates' screencasts, I want to use tools anywhere possible to enhance the viewers/students who visit the Google Classroom. I will also use the different design principles that we talked about from the readings when applying my layout to the site, or even the worksheets that I place on the site. I figured in order to achieve this goal, I will have goals for every two weeks, starting from now. It is as follows:

Week 1&2: Join Google Classroom, start playing around and familiarizing myself with the site, start to check out different Web tools to use

Week 3&4: Confirm which Web tools to use and figure out how to incorporate them into the site.

Week 5&6: Start to upload artifacts to the Google Classroom, i.e. recordings, worksheets, videos

            
Lastly, Finalize the site, should be fully functional as if the students will be using it

Blog #5

Part 1

This weeks blog post deals with the use of images in your design. It is interesting how a simple cropping of an image or adding an effect can drastically change the focal point or the feel of the image. So for the first part of the blog, I chose different images, and decided to change the way the viewers see the image. Here are the images along with their changes:

Original

Changes

So as you can see, the original picture shows a bright sunny day, featuring the skyline of a park in front of a city. For the first cropping, I tried to get rid of some unnecessary space, mainly the open areas on the sides. I did this to highlight the the compact nature of the city. The second image I wanted to change the feel of the picture. By making the color more dull, I feel like the picture went from a nice cool spring day, to a more hot, dry summer day. Lastly, I cropped out the entire city. By taking away the buildings and focusing on the tree, it makes the picture highlight the features of the park.

Original

Changes

The original picture features two soccer players resting on the soccer field, probably relaxing after playing a few games. The changes I made seem pretty simple, but I did that for a reason. The first image, I decided to just barely crop it, but I changed its effect. The reason that I did this is because I wanted to change the meaning of the picture. The original picture, to me, shows the soccer players just resting in between games on a nice day. By changing the effect, however, the I perceived it to be more around dusk. Since dusk is approaching, the soccer players are resting from their playing, which was stopped because it is getting dark soon. So they are regaining some fuel before they head home for the night. Lastly, I drastically changed the image by cropping out the players, and just making the image all about the ball itself, rather than the players.

Original

Changes

The original picture displays what seems to be a group of people traveling on camel back through the desert. I decided to change up the story a bit by adding some effects, and getting rid of some emptiness of the picture. First off, I changed the effect on the picture to make it more dry. Since they are in the desert, I wanted the viewer to feel what it was like to be in that scene, so dulling the color can communicate that. Next, I tried to change the focal point of the picture. When first looking at the picture, personally my eyes were drawn their the scenery of the picture. To change that, I cropped out some of the extra scenery to make the focus more obviously the travelers. Lastly, I decided to take the picture in a different direction. I cropped out the rest of the travelers to leave one lone wanderer. I left the scenery of the picture in to create a story of one person taking on the extremely large desert by themselves. 

Part 2

For the second part of this blog, I decided to do the activity on page 197 of Design Basics Index. For this activity, I used a picture of someone holding a cup of coffee. The original photo does not contain a border, so this allowed me extra room to create borders for it. As you can see, I decided to create borders that had similar color schemes as the picture itself. The reason I did that was because I felt like it would blend the picture together, and make it easier on the eyes of the viewer. As you can see, I started with probably more basic borders, then experimented a little more with the color schemes.

Original

Changes

 (This has a white border if you cannot see it)

Part 3

The last activity that I did for this week can be found on page 303 of Design Basics Index. For this activity we had to create a book cover for a book titled, "Flirting With the Bully". For this activity you had to create a theme of your book, related to the title, and stick with that theme throughout the whole cover. My two covers are as follows:

Cover 1

So for the first book cover, I tried to go with a more dark, serious theme. The words "Flirting With the Bully" can take on multiple meanings. For this meaning, I went with literal flirting, but I went a little overboard with the bully part. To make this a dark, creepy book, I found an image of Charles Manson's girlfriend. I decided to edit the photo to make it look a little creepier. Then for the bottom part, I placed the title on what looks like concrete, to represent the prison that Charles Manson is in. So from this cover, the book would probably be about either their relationship, or distorted relationships like their own. (Sorry for the eeriness of it.)

Cover 2

The second cover took a different approach. In this cover, the bully is junk food, so "Flirting With the Bully" means giving into temptation in regards to eating unhealthy. I went with the red theme because red is often associated with Valentine's Day, which also goes hand in hand with chocolate. So the image shows a woman with red lips snacking on candy. Although for a nutrition type book, it does seem to be a little classy, so maybe this can serve as a fiction novel of a woman giving into temptation on many levels. This theme romanticizes the relationship between a woman's willpower and temptation.

Mini Art School #2 (Blog 4)

Part 1

For the first part of the fourth blog, I decided to do #3 on page 84 of White Space Is Not Your Enemy by Golombisky and Hagen. For this activity, we are required to find logos of brands that we know that follow the four Gestalt laws (proximity, similarity, continuity, and closure) that were discussed in chapter 7. For each logo that I find, I will explain how it relates to those principles.

1. Starbucks

Proximity- Gesalt's principle stated that if objects are interpreted to be moving in the same direction, then they are believed to be part of the same group (Golombisky & Hagen, 76). We see this in the woman's hair and arms. Although the design only contains two colors, the vertical design is perceived to be grouped together, which is interpreted as her hair. Same with the horizontal stripes that are hinted to be her arms.

Similarity- As mentioned above, we as viewers groups designs by different principles. Since the vertical designs are the same similar shape, it is right to assume that they can be grouped together.

Continuity- "Our minds will continue a pattern beyond its ending points (Golombisky & Hagen, 76)." This can be seen by the woman's hair. Although her hair does not touch the crown above her head, it can be assumed that she is wearing the crown.

Closure- The circle in the logo is not fully closed. Where the woman's arm and hair meet the the green circle, it is still open. However, our minds see it as a closed circle.

2. Adidas

Proximity- Due to the proximity of the different aspects of the designs we group certain things. The viewer groups the three horizontal stripes together, as well as what appears to be ovular leaves at the top and bottom of those three stripes.

Similarity- The viewer groups the different parts of this design by the shape. As mentioned above, the three stripes are grouped together and the leaves are grouped together.

Continuity- Even though the three stripes are separating the top part and and the bottom part of the leaves in the logo, we see it as three full leaves in our minds. 

Closure- The logo is not closed. The white spaces in between of the three black lines leave it open. However, in our minds, we see it as a closed logo.

3. Paramount

Proximity- There are a couple different aspects to this design that are grouped together because of proximity. The letters are close together, so our minds read that as a word. This also applies to the stars that are located next to each other side by side.

Similarity- The stars are seen as a complete outline around the logo because they are similar in design, rather than them being seen as individual stars. Also, the black designs in the "mountain" can be grouped together as shadows.

Continuity- Although the line underneath the logo is not touching any other part of the design, it can be seen as the lower boundary of the logo. This shows continuity because the the mountain can be thought to continue and extend to the line.

Closure- Along with all the other designs, this logo is not closed. The white space in the logo is meant to portray a mountain, however, that same white space opens up the circle that the logo contains.

Part 2

For the second part of blog #4, I decided to do number 2 on page 56 of the same book. For this assignment, we had to go to the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Reading Room and choose a few pictures that we like. Then we are directed to discuss why we like it according to the principles of design. As a future history teacher, I jumped at the opportunity for this activity. Learning through images is one of my favorite things to do in the classroom, and now I can see the reasoning behind I am fond of certain types of photos, and can know what type of photos to look for in the future. The different design principles I will be judging them on is: focal point, contrast, balance, movement, rhythm, perspective, and unity.

1. 

This first image was a poster used to recruit men for World War I. In the design you see four men smiling in their uniforms. The four men are clumped together to create one focal point. The men's faces are the first thing that you look at when viewing this picture. The main reason that they are the focal point is because of the contrast. There are two sets of contrast for this image. First, the plain tan background makes the more colorful men pop out from the background. Then since the green uniforms are separated by hat and shirt, the color in between (their faces) become contrasted. Balance is also very prevalent in this image. Although it is not perfectly symmetrical, there seems to be a very peaceful balance in this image. If you drew a line down the picture in the middle, two men would be located on the left, and two on the right, thus creating the balance. 

2. 

This is a picture taken of a parade in Washington DC in 1923. The picture, to me, seems to have a very obvious focal point. The focal point is the American flag that is located in the center of the picture. It is the closest object in the picture and located in the center, so it draws the viewers attention. Contrast also plays a strong role in this picture. The contrast also lies in the American flag. That is due to the direction of the flag and the color of the flag. Although the flag is in black and white, the majority of the picture is gray. With the left and right side of the flag being dark black, it stands out against the grayish background. Also, the entire background is captured in a horizontal direction. Since the stripes of the flag are going vertical, it shows even more contrast from the background. Movement is also seen in this picture. Not to only discuss the flag, but the flag is the object that it showing motion. "Vertical lines may also communicate inspirational upward movement (Golombisky & Hagen, 53)." The vertical lines of the flag can play into that quote. Also, since the straightness of the vertical lines seem to be inconsistent, it is hinted that there is movement in the flag, such as the wind blowing it.

3. 

The last picture that I am going to discuss is a design created in the 1970's by Bruce Carter in tribute to Wounded Knee. Contrast seems to be the most important principle of design in this picture. Just like the first picture that was discussed, there are two forms of contrast going on here. The top part of the background is a light grayish color. The rest of the background shows off a solid black patter. This pattern is supposed to represent men with guns. The men stand out because they are darker than the background. Next, there is contrast in the front level of the picture with the Native American's face. The face is the same light grayish color as the background. However, against the black pattern of men, the face is contrasted and stands out. If the black pattern was not there, then the face would not have any contrast. Secondly, this image has rhythm. The rhythm is seen by the pattern of the men in the picture. "In graphic design, rhythmic movement has to with repeating items strategically (Golombisky & Hagen, 53)." The men in the picture can be seen as a pattern that is repeating. Throughout the solid black color, there are representations of similarity looking men. Each men has a hat, head, torso, and a gun. That same pattern is repeated ten and a half times. Unity can also be seen in this picture because the two parties represented in the picture are related. Since this is a tribute to Wounded Knee, we can assume that the two parties, the Native American, and the men with guns, represent the same parties that were involved in Wounded Knee, and are therefore related to each other, showing unity of the subjects

MDMC

Hey guys, check out my screencasts for my Web 2.0 Tools.

                                                          Web 2.0 Tool Vocaroo (Audio)

Web 2.0 Tool Aviary Photo Editor (Still Media)

Web 2.0 Tool Animoto (Moving Media)

Discussion #2

    This week was a very interesting week that had many opportunities for learning. There were the readings, to which we had to apply to a certain website or design. We had the hands on design experience from the second part of the blog, and we had the interview with Margaret Kiernan. I learned a lot from this weeks because I actually had to apply what was learned into action. Throughout the process, I found out that I faced some difficulties in the different types of design, so it was an eye opener that I should start my MMP earlier on, so I can give it the time and effort that it needs to the final product that I would like it to be.
      The readings definitely resonated with me the most because it really had me thinking about all the designs that I see on a regular basis. For example, the Design Basics Index made me aware how something as simple as graphics found on google, can enhance your design and bring it more to life. Not only the introduction of the images, but also the different layouts of the images play an important role. Also, the talk about the use of white space. Although I do not have much design experience, it showed me that in the designs that I have done, I did not take white space into consideration. I always saw the lack of text or graphic in a certain spot, and worried that people would think my designs were too basic or lacking something. Now I know that something like that can be utilized.
     My blog reflection really was an eye opener about my own visual literacy. I faced challenges using the different design processes, such as not being able to express the design that I see in my head. However, the interview definitely reassured me. There was a part in the interview where Margaret Kiernan talked about how when she first started, the design process was on paper and pencil. When the graphic design field changed, she had to relearn everything to continue her career. This showed me that although I do not have much knowledge on the subject now, that is not my final destination. I signed up to this course because I wanted to learn the tools that I need to be a great teacher who utilizes design and now I am even more determined to do so. For example, one thing that I learned was found in the interview. She mentioned how, on something as simple as a powerpoint presentation, you control where the eyes go. So keeping that in mind, I now can make historical interactive lectures more interesting!

Blog #3

The different principles of design were pretty interesting concepts. In the world we live in today, we are constantly being exposed to different graphics and design, whether it is seen on tv, internet, magazines or just on advertisements we see all over. I never really thought about what exactly goes into creating the different designs, but after conducting this week’s readings, I can now notice why some designs are more standout than others. To put this to the test, I decided to pick a website that I sometimes use, to see how well the graphics used compare to what we read about for our class. The site I chose was the website for the streetwear clothing brand Supreme. The website could be found at: http://www.supremenewyork.com. I will list the different principles of design to see how well Supreme followed these guidelines.

1. Balance- The homepage of the website has a very symmetrical balance. The options to click on to navigate through the site are just listed down the middle, without any other design located on the left or right.
2. Proximity: As mentioned in balance, all of the options are located down the center. In addition to that, they are evenly spaced, very neatly lined down the middle. It makes it very easy to see what options the user can click on.
3. Repetition: The entire option list uses the same font, making it very easy for the reader to navigate through the site, while also acknowledging that the repetition allows the user to know that the listed words are the options to click on.
4. Contrast: Contrast is the most noticeable part of the website. The entire background is an extremely faint picture of the logo, but it is so faint that the entire background at first glance appears to be black. The logo itself shown at the top is extremely noticeable, due to the use of the color red. The options to go through the site are white, so against the black background, it is impossible to miss.
5. White Space- White space is known as the absence of any text or graphics. The majority of the home screen appears to be black, so white space is heavily used. Even if you click one of the options, such as “news”, the majority of the next page is blank white space, with little graphic and text located in the center.

Those rules were found in the article, Principles in Design. The next set of rules will describe whether the site did or did not break the rules mentioned in, 10 Web Design Rules That You Can Break.

1. Use a minimal number of font faces- Supreme did not break this rule. On the homepage, as well as the other pages on the site, only one to two fonts are used.
2. Do not use too many colors- Supreme did not break this rule because on the homepage, only three different colors are used. The only time I have seen a large number of colors was when the clothing featured on the site contained those colors.
3. Make your site’s goal obvious- Supreme did not follow this rule. If I did not know the brand, I would not know what was featured on the site by looking at the homepage. The only hint that might give away the idea that they are a clothing brand is the option to click “Shop”.
4. Use different colors for the text and backgroud- Supreme both did and did not follow this rule. When looking at the very faint picture in the background of the homepage, you can see that it did not follow that rule. They placed a black picture on top of a black background. However, at the same time, the heavy contrast from the black background to the white words show that the rule was follow.

Stick to web-safe fonts- I would say that Supreme did not follow this rule. Although the font used is readable, the font size on the homepage is a very small font. With the small size, combined with the font used, it can be somewhat difficult to read the words compared to other sites.




For part two of the blog post for this week, I decided to follow the procedures on page 87 found in Design Basics Index. These procedures focused on adding more images to a flyer or a design to bring more life to it. When reading those directions, I automatically knew what I would be using for this process. During my student teaching experience, I designed a culminating project where the students had to pick which historical figure they thought to be the most important at the time of the revolution. The students would go head to head in a March Madness tournament style project. When I created the info sheet, I knew that the page was really boring, but I was very pressed for time, so I did not get a chance to enhance it a little bit. So for this portion of the blog post, I had the opportunity to place some pictures in the different positions. The pictures I chose are either related to the March Madness tournament, or Revolutionary figures, such as the Founding Fathers, Molly Pitcher, and Crisps Attucks. I picked those to show the students that there are a variety of people to choose from. As a warning, I am very new to the design process, so the pictures might seem a little basic.

Original

Enhanced

Blog Post #2

When thinking about my MMP, a couple different communities come to mind. The first one that I would like to explore is Google Classroom. I do not have much knowledge about Google Classroom, except for watching it being used during my practicum last year. My teacher set up the classroom and every child in the class was a member. All of the worksheet files were uploaded, so if a student misplaced their hard copy or were absent, they could find it located their. During class, the students would work on the worksheets provided and were responsible for turning it in on the site by the due date. I want to learn more about this site because I feel like it can be essential for the organization of the classroom. Also, it allows for students to have access to the school work while at home if they want any extra practice. Having this in the classroom really teaches students the importance of responsibility, while also promoting a sense of community in the classroom.

Another community that I would like to join is Podbean. Podbean is an online community that allows people to make and record their own podcast and share it with others. This can be a very useful tool in the classroom, especially for social studies. In history, every event has multiple perspectives and it is important to listen to and understand these perspectives, in order to grasp a deeper connection to the material. I would like to use this community to have students create their own podcasts about their take on a certain event. Whether it's with a partner, and it is in a mini-debate format, or created individually and later listened by other students, it provides an outlet for the students to hear and listen to each other. Hearing each other’s opinion on a certain topic can help expand our own knowledge, so having something like this in the classroom and facilitate student learning. I figured that if I successfully explore and utilize these two communities, my future history classroom can run very smoothly while allowing students to get in touch with their creativity.

Discussion Post #1

     The Daley reading brought in interesting perspectives on the idea of literacy in relation to technology. As the world advances, literacy is no longer just reading and write worksheets and books, now new technology is brought in to supplement those. This can either be a beneficial or negative thing, depending on the students. The quote that sparked this discussion is an interesting take on the negative aspect of the technological literacy, she wrote, "Multimedia, so ubiquitous to young people's experience, often seems to be particularly hard for them to deconstruct (Daley, 36)." In my experiences of working with students in the classroom, I have actually seen the both sides of this argument, one that supports the Daley quote, and one that opposes it. 
     During my fall student teaching internship, I wanted to incorporate technology whenever  could. I always used the projector and gave interactive lectures with power points or prezis displayed behind me. The real struggle was trying to get the students one to one technology. Sometimes, I was able to secure the computer lab for the students to work on a personal computer while they researched information for a project. One project that we had was a Revolutionary Talk Show. The students had were given questions that they would be asked at this talk show, which would be held in class two days later. While watching the students, I noticed that they would just copy word for word what they found on each website. Most of the students would not read what they were writing then break it down into their own words. So after seeing this, I figured that they would do it during the talk show; but, of course, I was wrong. Even while presenting to the class,  they read exactly what they had found on the site. The problem was that there was not any analyzation. The students would not process what they were writing; instead they would just see what was on the surface.
     On the other hand, I have seen students in the classroom debunk Daley's quote. During my practicum last year, I was placed in a middle school where the technology ratio was one-to-one, where each student had their own device or Chromebook. Sometimes when working with these Chromebooks, their teacher would assign them a primary source document or an article for them to read. Rather than just reading, they would have to analyze the article and answer questions. They would use an app called Kami, which would allow them to analyze and annotate the article, as a pdf on the Chromebook. This allowed the students to highlight, underline, and mark up the articles to help them understand and process the information easier. From what I saw while walking around, this approach seemed to be pretty effective. However, in both my experiences, I never had any administrators discourage the use of multimedia in the classroom. From what I have heard from other teachers, it is important to use technology in the classroom, especially when an administrator is observing your teaching.

Blog Post #1

1. 
   
2.         For the first blog post, I decided to analyze the Ciroc commercial with Diddy in it. I believe that this commercial was intended to attract new customers, particularly those who might not be familiar with the vodka or those in the higher class or those trying to be. From prior knowledge, I know that Diddy has been heavily involved in the hip-hop culture and already has supporters of the brand through those means. However, the commercial featured a song by Frank Sinatra, which is completely different genre. By using an iconic song as such, it will gain the attention from a different audience from one that was playing a rap song. The commercial is seen through Diddy's eyes, as he takes part in a high class gathering involving men dressed in suits and women in fancy dresses, while drinking Ciroc. With this scene being portrayed, it is selling a possible, but slim form of reality. Not everyone will partake in a scene like this while drinking Ciroc, but they are trying to sell the audience a dream of the high life. It is possible that upper class audiences will see this and can relate to the actions in the commercial, so they feel that they can relive this scene. Others, on the other hand, will see this and go purchase the vodka in hopes of being able to somewhat attain what they saw in the commercial, or at least feel upper class for the night. 
           One of the most important decisions when it came to the design of the commercial was the theme. Yes, it was a higher end gathering, but to match the Frank Sinatra idea, the gathering seems to be modeled after a social gathering of the wealthy from the time period of the early to mid twentieth century. This design was a great decision because it also gives off the idea that the Ciroc brand is a long lived company, one that generations of respectable, important people have used and loved. Associating the brand with this level of wealth and making it seem like an institution will surely attract new customers and reinforce returning customers decisions.
   

About Me

Hey everybody. My name is Tim and I am currently a graduate student here at Rutgers University studying  Social Studies Education. I have recently finished my student teaching this past fall in a US History I and an AP US History class. Now that I have some experience in the classroom, I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge and incorporating new strategies in the classroom, such as technology, in order to encourage student learning.