EDLD Week 5 Reflection Assignment

The course EDLD 5366 Digital Graphics and Web Design went from easy and fun to understand while other portions frustrated me. Finding a group to work with was manageable and I was able to reconnect with past classmates that I had worked with in other courses. Working in teams, I believe, was the best part of the course. I was able to share my input and academic products with others and I was able to get help from my team when I was stuck on the individual portion of weekly assignments. Omar and Patricia are two classmates that I enjoyed working with immensely and they made the website creation task easy since they both had previous experience. Our website is http://ovasquezlamar.wix.com/edld5366. Creating the animation video was enjoyable. I had never done one and enjoyed learning basic skills on how to create one. I am going to take what I have learned from this and challenge myself along with my students in creating two minute animation videos on different health topics. The readings had a lot of good information and the discussion board gave good insight into peer’s thoughts. When I first read that we had to come up with a brand for ourselves I hit a wall. The discussion board and readings about branding made me realize the concept of how early and important it is to start a personal brand. When Lead Alcantara explained, “A brand is an idea and perceived value formed by its intended audience” it was easier for students to understand how they are perceived by an audience, or in other words, friends, family, teachers, peers, and strangers. It is important to start this concept in elementary school. I am at a middle school and this is the age that students are starting to develop their branding without realizing it. I asked each student to write down key words that would explain who they are as a person. After they were done with the activity I had students reflect on two other students in the class, making sure to emphasize that it must be a positive reflection. After gathering information I put together a PowerPoint with the data collected to see if students could pick out which one was them. I did this the week after the branding assignment. Then went on to explain how this may affect their personal and professional lives because in business, it’s not only whether or not you know information, but how you are perceived by a company with the brand that they’re putting out there. Lastly, the principals of design was one of the significant areas of this class. Learning about Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity (CRAP) enlightened me on how to analyze logos and other designs of webpages and advertisements. Now when I visit a new website I analyze it using CRAP. I have also instructed my students to these guidelines, leaving out the acronym. I currently teach a Physical Education/ Health class where my students have received opportunities to create advertisements for different health related topics and share valuable information. I can easily see where what I learned from this course will improve my classroom and the time spent there with students for the better. Citation: Alcantara, L. (2009). The art of self-branding. Retrieved from http://www.lealea.net/blog/comments/the-art-of-self-branding-part-one/ YouTube video - Basic Layout and Design Principles for Webpages

Animation Video

EDLD 5366 week 2 discussion post

When do we start teaching students about self-branding?

 As a middle school teacher, I have noticed that some of my students are starting to create their own brand as they start to transition from kids to teen-agers. Many of them change what they believe their branding is going to be, but some would like to be seen in a different light. We need to make them understand the meaning of branding and how to brand themselves. Along with teaching them branding we need to show them how many company’s logos have evolved as the company evolved, just as a child’s brand should change as they grow and mature. What concepts about branding are important to teach?

Just as each company grows and evolves logos reflect change in the philosophy and direction the company is heading in. Students will also go through their own changes as they grow as teen-ager into adults. A logo that highlights their uniqueness, a student should see that their own uniqueness is an attribute, not a disadvantage. In an environment where children try hard to fit in and follow the crowd, introducing them to how brand and teaching the wonders of being your own unique self and celebrating that uniqueness should be of importance of every teacher.
What strategies would you use to teach students about the concept of branding?

One activity that will give students ideas for creating their own brand would be to have the students create collages to include words that they believe describe them. I would ask the art teacher to work with me on this activity. Other sources would be both magazines and videos showing different logos and branding. Once they have an understanding of branding I would place them into various groups so that they could collaborate with each other to come up with a pseudo company brand. Here they can see that corporations’ subsidiaries carry their own logo but all fall under the main corporation logos that are used in the business world. Many students will be drawn to the logos of companies that are involved in their area of interest. By having them come up with a main brand, they can see that in business a company may be associated with different interests.

How can branding be used in an educational environment?

Branding is used from the start of child’s education, the school mascot is the first experience in branding. As they go through their educational career they associate with school branding and the development of their own branding by the type of students they hang out with. We just need to make them understand that even they may not create their own brand they become associated with a certain brand of student the hangout with. Creating your own logo is one of the projects used to help the students communicate who they are to the rest of the class. It helps the students bond with others, and highlight similarities and differences.

Logo Reflection

Employing principals of C.R.A,P. was the last phase of putting my logo together. It was somewhat difficult to come up with a logo that I thought represented me well within the parameters of my final design. When I finally began to draft the design I chose to run with popular branding that I have seen on television, billboards, and magazines. More specifically, I chose lettering branding that we associate with companies like the golden M for McDonalds, W for Whataburger, and DQ for Dairy Queen, just to name a few. The first and lingering idea that came to mind was my passion for coaching. Designing the logo became easy. I kept it simple but yet touched on what describes me. Contrast phase was used to focus on the E in the design. Repetition was used by keeping the background color and the lettering used in the logo. Alignment was introduced by keeping the lettering centered under the E, while the E remained as the focal point of the logo.

Logo

C.R.A.P. and “Qur’an” by Sultans Baybar’s

C.R.A.P. and “Qur’an” by Sultans Baybar’s Applying the principals of C.R.A.P. in this writing and presentation of the text, art work and changing of chapter to chapter conveys much. The red cover of the book catches the eye on a bookshelf. The spacing of text from one verse to another is well spaced out. Along with the change of color used from a verse that carries the reader while emphasizing importance is nice. The artwork that is used to go from one chapter to the other is uniform and unique. The alignment of the text and centering of the artwork was also uniform throughout the book. This an easy read to follow.

Action Research Plan Update

My action research plan is slowly coming together. I have not been able to start on as many of the domains as I thought I would have by this point. One of the reasons for the slow start is I coach year round so this takes a good chunk of my free time. I am planning to spend intercessions and summer breaks on accomplishing these tasks. Having been able to send out surveys and meet with teachers on what improvement they would like to see at the campus level is where I will begin. A large part of this effort is to demonstrate to teachers that dialogue is coming first and foremost from the school’s administrative team, and not by teacher word of mouth. In order to give the teachers a voice I am currently sitting on two committees; School Improvement Team (SIT) and Educator's Professional Advisory Committee (EPAC). Both committees meet once a month while the EPAC is a district wide committee that allows campuses to send a representative that will bring concerns and questions to other EPAC members at the district service center. SIT committee is the campus level meeting group where teachers from each grade level bring their concerns to discuss at the campus then communicate concerns to the EPAC member. Both these committees meet once a month each for about one hour to two. Another part of internship that I have been able to complete is general administrative duties. These have included sitting in on discipline of students, parent teacher conferences and monitoring after hours events such as sporting events and meets. There are still quite a bit of areas left to cover. I believe that the second part of the school year will offer me opportunities to step into the role of an administrator exploring and practicing duties or tasks that I have not been able to perform yet.