Activity Summary:
This activity is used to simultaneously help students become literate with image editing software and think about practical applications of the visual design principles.
Instructions:
“This is a computer lab activity. I usually use this activity before a poster design unit or an oral presentation unit. This activity is a good way of saying ‘No, you don’t have to be a designer, but you do need to be competent applying visual principles using the lab technology.’ The interactive nature of this activity creates a very energetic beginning to any visual unit.”
This activity is used to simultaneously help students become literate with image editing software and think about practical applications of the visual design principles.
- Before beginning this activity, students should have downloaded the PowerPoint file from the course website or course Moodle.
- Explain to students that the activity should help them “dig in” and become familiar with the less prominent, but very powerful features of PowerPoint’s toolbox.
- Each slide will have a specific exercise that students must complete before moving on to the next. DO NOT help the students with this exercise. The more you let them dig around, create collaborative partnerships, and search Google, the more comfortable they will be learning new technologies in the future.
- Give students at least 25 minutes to complete the exercises. Once they’ve finished, call individual students to the lectern computer to have them demonstrate the solved exercise to the rest of the class.
- Discuss what new tools you found. Find out what students had a hard time with, what they enjoyed.
- Most importantly, make sure to stress the value of knowing an image editing application, as this helps students move away from cliché template designs to more rhetorically motivated novel designs.