Week+3+Assignment+Part+3.4,+Reflection+on+EDLD+5366

__Reflection on EDLD 5366, Digital Graphics/Desktop Publishing__
This was one of the most enjoyable classes in the program. The content was fun and informative. I learned a lot about design and art in this course. In fact, I haven't looked at advertisement's the same way since.I especially enjoyed the acronym C.R.A.P., contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity (Yearwood, 2009). I absolutely enjoyed Dr. Yearwood's PowerPoints and lectures. They were engaging and informative.

It was also one of the most time-consuming. Creating a school newsletter was much harder than I thought it would be. Part of the reason for this was we couldn't just use a template, though I was sorely tempted at times. The other reason it was difficult was because now I had a high design standard to emulate. I couldn't just throw together another so-so newsletter.

Self-Assessment

The principles of design were exciting to learn about and appreciate. The virtual book of the ancient manuscript, the Lindisfarne Gospel, was absolutely breath-taking (Lindisfarne Gospel, n.d.). My wife and I ended up spending quite a bit of time exploring the British Library website. I love to take photographs and I could see these design principles in my favorite pictures. I had some knowledge of these elements before, mostly from teching art to my students. I have always considered myself art-challenged. I was glad to add what I learned from this class to what I already knew. I wanted my newsletter to be very user-friendly knowing my audience was parents and elementary school students. I also wanted it to look great and incorporate the design principles of C.R.A.P. I am using what I learned into my art lessons, as well as my notes and letters to my students and their families.

Learn as a Learner

When I was creating my newsletter I looked at lots of positive and negative examples. Now that I knew about design principles, I could critically examine the ones I liked and emulate them. The main way I assessed my performance on this assignment was to try and look at it objectively. Then I had my wife look at it. I was sharing with her the information I was learning in the class and she was very interested in it too. So she was another pair of eyes to see if it meet the requirements of the project. My Lamar friends were a great help as we discussed and vented some of our challenges with the course in general and the newsletter in particular.

Lifelong Learning Skills

The underlying ideas behind good design have been and will continue to be useful. I liked how in this course we looked at ancient manuscripts such as the Lindisfarne Gospel. In fact I recently bought a book that had similar manuscripts because I thought the designs were so beautiful. I will continue to use fellow educators, my friends at Lamar and other knowledgeable people to help me learn more about how to use design to communicate information more clearly. I want to use the Golden Ratio (Yearwood, 2009), principles of thirds, and C.R.A.P. when I create everything from webpages, to Christmas cards. I am interested in taking classes and reading books about design principles.

References

Lindisfarne Gospel. (n.d.) In //British Library online//. Retrieved from http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/lindisfarne/lindisfarne_broadband.htm?middle Yearwood, J. (2009). //Basic design principles.// [mulitmedia] Yearwood, J. (2009). //Golden ratio and rule of thirds.// [mulitmedia]

Course Artifacts