This week I found it interesting to learn about designing effective multimedia objects. I have taken a few educational technology (edtech) courses which teach you about using different digital tools and using technology for learning. Now that I have the base of understanding of how to do this, I want to further my learning by learning how to create more meaningful and effective multimedia objects. I appreciate the humour behind the death by powerpoint video.

The speaker, David, recaps at the end what he hopes everyone takes away from the video. His main points were:

  • ONE message per slide
  • Contrast controls focus
  • Attention is drawn to the LARGEST thing
  • Avoid speaking while showing sentences
  • Dark backgrounds are better
  • 6 objects limit per slide

David does a good job at modelling what he is talking about. He shows examples of what to do and what not to do. The recap at the end was beneficial and I will remember those take aways and think of them when creating presentations in the future.

Creating with Canva

I have used Canva before for several things including school assignments and social media posts. I have found it can be hit or miss. After learning more about multimedia design and how more about Canva I do realize how useful it is. While exploring the website I noticed you can make business cards. I was recently hired as a Teacher on Call and need to make cards to give out to schools. I think I will try using Canva to make cards. For this week’s hands on activity I made a poster. It took me awhile to come up with an idea as I am better at taking specific instructions. When I have too much creativity freedom I am not sure where to begin. Something that my roommate and I have been doing is movie marathons on the weekends. Our most recent one was the Divergent Trilogy.

References:

TEDx Talks (April 14th, 2014). How to avoid death By PowerPoint | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholmSalon. [Video] YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpi1Lm6dFo

Canva.com

Response to Gracen’s blog post:

I really like how Gracen explains how she breaks tasks into 3 steps when she is teaching. This is an excellent habit to have! In my first practicum (Kindergarten/Grade 1) a suggestion I was given was to write down the steps that the students needed to do on the board. The classroom teacher was crafty enough to have laminated photos that went along with most of my steps. For example my steps may have included

  1. Name
  2. Cut
  3. Glue
  4. Colour

I would like to see an example the 3 steps for a task you have taught. Maybe you might consider adding this to your post. Also after reading your post I now know who to go to if I have questions about using Canva 😉