Design Journal # 9 - The end of the show!

And it's over..... ! Wow! I just can't believe that I :
1. Finally finished a project!
2. Created something that I had seen in my head at the beginning of the design process and actually made it come alive!
3. Created something that I REALLY like!
4. Won the BLUE SOCK Award!


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"the above text was not a typo. My little Elisa decided to leave her comments about the project. I decided to leave it, even though she is only 2 year old, I am sure she had a lot to say!"

I had never expected to win the blue sock award, it was an added bonus to being a part of the Studio. I am happy that I got to learn Photoshop (at least become comfortable because I know that there is more to discover) and to getter better at Dreamweaver. What I am most proud of is the friendships that I made in the classroom. The Studio created a safe environment of commrodorie that allowed you to open up your projects for review and criticism and not feel anxious about being shut down. Not all classrooms are made alike, and the Studio is definitely a special place. Two things that I did regret was that I mainly stuck to 6190 and I didn't branch out to the other classes until late into the semester and I didn't use my mentor as much as I should have.

Clinton and Rieber put it correctly in the Studio Experience at UGA as they said " As students go to various activities and events scheduled for their respective class, many of them organized by the participants themselves, they meet, help, and interact with a variety of their classmates. It is expected that the more experienced and skilled Studio participants will mentor those with less experience and skill. Of course, each participant has unique responsibilities associated with their respective course, but all have opportunities to call on any of the instructors and other participants for help, advice, and critiques as project development proceeds during the semester. This all-in-one structure helps to demonstrate and explain the requirements and dynamics of the more advanced courses for all participants from the very beginning of the studio experience. This structure also helps to legitimize established aspects of the Studio culture, such as the community service requirement , as each new group of students sees these in operation among their more seasoned peers." (9)

As far as reflection of the showcase, I believe it was successful. I don't have anything else to base it on, but I do know that I got some "customers" who were really interested in my project and found it to be very creative. The weather did put a bit of a damper on things with the amount of visitors who probably would have came, but I believe it was still a success.

Reflecting on my project, I am sure if I look over it again, I will find something to move or to recolor, because it is never 100% done, but I am very happy about where I stopped. It is exactly what I had dreamt it to be, way back in September. I love the colors, the accessibility, the pictures and the story it tells. I am just so proud of myself that I stuck to my guns and finished the project it its entirety.

For the accessibility of the site, I tested it through http://wave.webaim.org/ and http://www.contentquality.com/ and they detected no accessibility errors. I used css on my secondary pages and while the rollover effect created slices of my index page, I added alt tags to all of the images created because of the slices.


Thank you for a great semester, and I am looking forward to 2 more Studio experiences!

References:

Clinton, G., & Rieber, L.P. (2008). The Studio Experience at the University of Georgia: An example of constructionist learning for adults. Unpublished manuscript.

Clinton, G., & Rieber, L.P. (2008). The Studio Experience at the University of Georgia: An example of constructionist learning for adults. Unpublished manuscript.

Design Journal #8 - Never too late!

Hi Journal,
I am sorry, I seem to have forgotten about you! Maybe it was all of the work on the EDIT 6170 & 6190 Project and then through in Thanksgiving, and some things get pushed aside! But, better late than never!

Today I have been diligently working on my project. I am doing some final touches and adding some of recommendations from the showcase rehearsal. All in all, I heard some great feedback, like adding a PREVIOUS button to my scrapbook pages and changing some misspelled words. Also, someone pointed out to me that it would be nice to have some mouse over effects when they were maneuvering through the index page. I plan to add the final touches to that and upload the project by Wednesday. As far as the design, I am really proud of my project. I heard a lot of great comments from other classmates complementing the colors, attractiveness, and simplicity of the site. I am happy that I finally went back to the original idea, followed my instincts and created a project that I love, and I hope my daughter will love too!

For my literature review I read "Project Kid-Designer" by Rieber, Luke and Smith. I find this article interesting because I hope to use it's insight on helping my 14 year old study for his school tests. The article goes on to state that "while many children have difficulty in school due to physical or learning disabilities that are beyond their control, others do poorly because they do not take school work seriously." The article also declares "Children lack of motivation to "achieve" stems from them not seeing school tasks as authentic and meaningful." I feel as if that is the case with Andre. To combat this motivation, the participants of the article decided to use "play" as a learning tool for middle school students, and have students design their own games. "This is similar to the not so surprising phenomenon that if you want to learning something, well teach it." I found some the outcomes interesting in this article - group dynamics of students who before might have been outsiders, but by the end were included in the group and whose opinions were valued. Another interesting outcome was the view that the students had on the adults as initially teachers, and then as part of their group. The most interesting idea is that two of these groups were "low achievers, or at-risk" students who were able to come up and design "cool" educational games. I am wanting to try to use this idea on Andre, and maybe we can create a game that can help him study for his tests. My idea is a board game, who's cards can change with his particular subject. He can provide the subject information and questions and my husband and I can also play... maybe we should call it --- "stump mom and dad?"

Next steps:
Do final touches on my project
Upload to Moodle
Call it a day!

References:
Rieber, L. P., Luke, N., & Smith, J. (1998). Project KID DESIGNER: Constructivism at work through play. Meridian: Middle School Computer Technology [On-line], 1(1). Available http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/index.html