Lesson 3: Desktop Publishing and Word Processing

During this week’s lesson, I learned quite a bit about technology can for students with differing learning needs. Some of the technologies, such as text prediction, text-to-speech and assistive input devices, like mini keyboards was very interesting. I knew that there was technology that assisted with students with severe physical limitations, but I had never thought about word processing being a solution for students with limited fine motor skills, like writing.

Reading about these obstacles for some learners reinforced what I already knew about design principles. I believe what makes flyers, posters, and newsletters more understandable and user-friendly is a combination of things. You need to have enough white space on the material so that the reader will know, very clearly, where they are to be looking. This also allows for visual “rest”. A cluttered page without enough white space can make the reader feel overwhelmed and rushed to absorb the information being presented.

I also think that a clear definition is necessary if the material has different subjects. The example of some work I have created is a newsletter. Since I am not yet a teacher, my example is a newsletter that I created during one of my internships. This newsletter is for the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center. I designed the layout, edited the articles, as well as wrote one of the pieces. In this newsletter, the different articles are highlighted by rules (or lines separating the items), larger space between columns, or in some cases, different colored backgrounds. The articles also all contain a headline, and in articles that split pages, a jump line.

The principles behind this newsletter is the same as one I would create for the parent’s of my students, or, with older students, have them create as a class. For teaching, I would also utilize more graphics. I feel like for a student, there is too much text, and not enough of the visual element in this newsletter. In my teaching, I would break the sections up more definitively to not take away from the material, or have it be distracting from the reader.

           

For a newsletter I would have my students create, I would have them incorporate more photos, so that they could become familiar with using a digital camera, and with inserting photographs. This would also be a great way to showcase if they are explaining something that has multiple steps or changed over a period of time (such as a plant they may grow as a part of a science unit).