Feb. 8

Two periods. First period we introduced computer skills and comic life. Second period we gave a lesson on the essential elements of poster poster design. Today was more spontaneous. Our first period was taught in a different classroom (which had enough laptops for each kid) and we had our lesson planned that did not have comic life (the software they’re using) in mind. The lesson was a crash course in computer literacy, beginning with ‘creating new folders’ to covering all the comic life features. Instruction went pretty well, I think the amount of material was just right for the time we had. Before explaining a concept or showing them how to perform a task, I would often assess whether they already had prior knowledge. For example, I would ask if they knew what a file was or how to create one, most everyone would almost always answer with a ‘yesss’. And each time they didn’t really know (some had a little trouble with tasks like creating a folder). I found it pretty interesting since few ever said yes when we asked a non-computer question, I think they’re used to the idea of being more computer literate than adults. The kids were good, they got into the whole computer thing and looked like they had fun. Second period was a completely different class. We had no idea what the kids had already done for the posters they were making, and also did not know what material we were to be teaching. We ended up making a short discussion on the important elements of poster design. This discussion actually led to a great dialogue with a couple students who we’re very curious about studying design in college. One girl was super interested questions after questions, there was a period where I was actually unsure what to do (keep answering questions about college and design or get back to the lesson?). We were surprised to find out she had never showed any interest in college or pursuing the arts before today. Given a prompt, they sketched ideas for the rest of the time. Some ideas were quite good, some were quite bad, some would not believe they could think of an idea.