post 3

The Newsletter assignment this week utilized the Microsoft word skills we have learned in class this week. In My news letter, I played around with font and justification. I learned how to use the columns format on just one section of the page and showed off  my abilities to embed Hyperlinks, usable email addresses, and bulleted sections of text. I think if i ever actually mailed out the newsletter I would use the mail merge tab in Word and personalize each letter with a greeting and the name of the student whose parents it's going to. My newsletter this week was an experiment in making a newsletter, trying out a new skill. If i were ever to make another, I would play around more with the style and design and make an effort to make it much more aesthetically pleasing.

In this Dott Infographic, it is easy to see how infographics can be used to merge creativity and productivity. The company uses a striking image with lots of color and aesthetic appeal to draw the eye of a bypassed, but includes a lot of detailed information on the company. Out of many infographics I scrolled through to choose one to critique, this one stood out and caught my eye, which means it did its job. I think the supplemental detail at the bottom of the graphic that is color coded to aid understanding of each of the categories in the big picture really helps organize the page. The creative way the parts fit together in a cohesive way does a good job making the point about their company and it's many parts that work well together. The only criticism I can really come up with is that the picture is a little busy and can be hard to zero in on. The many parts and flashy colors can distract from the point of the piece as a whole. I noticed this as I realized I had been looking at the picture for a few minutes and still had no idea what function of the actual company was.

In my future classroom, I hope to use social bookmarking like Chapter nine talked about. A resource to share and annotate important websites, storing them for later is very helpful to a high school English Literature teacher as so so many important commentaries on books or the writing process are available online. Big libraries of poetry could be accessed and put into an online magazine for students to access to complete projects. As a teacher I would make my students keep running blog journals of commentary and analysis on assigned chapters in reading for specific weeks. By using blogs, I could stay updated on grading throughout the reading process without confiscating the students work to grade it, I could also have students quick link specific passages from online text into their blogs so I can reference the exact textual evidence in their analysis. As a high school teacher, I would feel it necessary to teach my students even the basics of digital citizenship, because so often, high schoolers are the pinnacle of laziness and try to cut every corner possible. Often digital citizenship slips through the cracks of general education standards, so some students reach their senior year of high school and still don't understand the importance of being a good digital citizen. Even if it was just a refresher course on citizenship, I would still start from the basics and teach all my students all the protocol to be good citizens with their technology.