Online Learning

This morning I saw that I had received incompletes for not responding to any of my classmates discussion responses, and a teacher comment saying I could do the responses and she would update my grade. I don't understand why I didn't just get partial credit. Why is it all or nothing? I honestly would have preferred to just get a lower grade than no grade at all. But instead, I spent at least an hour going through and responding to three different responses on each of the two discussions so I could get a grade.

I am someone who likes to get my work done and not have to worry about it at the last minute. With multiple classes, four kids, work, and all of my responsibilities outside of my classes, I can't really afford to procrastinate.  That's where the standard online class set up fails me.  There must be some kind of standards about student interaction because all of my classes want me to participate in discussions and respond to classmates. It feels so forced and not at all helpful in meeting my goals in the classes I'm taking. On top of that, most of my classmates are not very quick to participate in the discussions. So I am left to keep checking back to see if anyone has posted so I can finally respond to someone else.  

In other news, I started laying out my photo book. I created a wire frame, which is not something I've ever done before. I will end up having to go back and switch it up a bit once I have finalized which pictures I will be using in my book. But I have created some basic page layouts that can be used for various situations. Progress!

Sleep update: I have managed to get some sleep, but the sleep deficit is real.  

Projects in Progress

This week has been rough.  I don't know what's going on, by I cannot sleep. I am operating on fumes, but I am trying to stay on top of my work. This week I was supposed to turn in three book cover roughs for a photo book and three cover roughs for an old typing style guide called "The Mac is Not a Typewriter", so 6 roughs in total. Some were better than others. I much prefer the ones I made for my photo book.  By the time I got to the "Mac" book covers, I hadn't had a good night's sleep in over a week. I think it shows! I just looked over the PDF for the "Mac" book and found a very obvious typo.  It is a rough, so I'm going to let it slide. I am so tired. 

It's Getting Real Now

Well, my InDesign class just kicked into high gear.  I went from watching hours of videos every week and no projects to now having two big multi week projects going on simultaneously.  I’m worried that I’m going to end up spending more time on this class than my other classes combined. The funny thing is I thought by week 10 I’d be familiar with how things worked in my classes and have a good rhythm down.  I was not expecting the rhythm to change completely.

That said, I think that doing these projects will definitely give me a chance to really use InDesign and put in practice the stuff I’ve been learning in all the hours and hours of videos. Whether or not I will enjoy that process is another story. As someone who enjoys art and creativity, I had hoped that graphic design might be a good path. I have yet to take an actual graphic design course, but based on what I’ve learned so far in this class, there is a lot to do with the nitty gritty details of typography that just makes me want to curl up in a ball and take a nap. How do people get excited about that stuff?  Robin Williams’ (not the actor Ha!) intro to The Mac is not a Typwriter indicates to me that she is someone who really cares about all of that nitty gritty stuff. But I was figuratively shaking my head the whole time I was browsing through the contents. Clearly she and I are not kindred spirits! 

Anyway, I’m trying to kick myself in the ass a bit and find my positivity. I don't have to love typography to understand the value in making things look good. And I may be pulling my hair out working on this class for the rest of the semester, but I will learn things!

Keeping Up With School While On Vacation

 Last week was spring break at COD. Unfortunately my kids’ spring break is this week.  I wish they were the same, but they never are. My kids always have spring break the week after COD. We typically plan our vacations around the kids’ vacations, so that means I end up missing classes (if they are in person).  My two other classes had the modules for this week up early, so I was able to get that work done during MY spring break, but for this class, I had to wait until Monday to access the module.  

So here I am in New Mexico, trying to stay on top of the work for this class.  At least my class is online and I have internet access. However, I was surprised at how many items there were in this module. I I will not be able to watch every single video this week, because my spare time is limited. I will have to do some catching up when I get home. I have watched a handful of the shorter videos. I enjoyed learning about Adobe Capture.  I have the app on my iPad, but I have never used it. I also read about the book project so I could do the related assignments for this week. I’ve submitted the book choice assignment, but I’m not sure if I did it correctly. There was not much guidance about the book brief, so I just wrote up what I could and submitted everything as a text entry, including the url for my pin board. Hopefully it is enough.

It will be a very good exercise to put the whole book together in InDesign.

Typography Typography Typography

This week I learned a lot more about Typography in inDesign.  I wonder are all graphic designers super excited about typefaces and typography? There are so many nitty gritty details about typography and how to make it just so within a page layout. I have to say this is not the kind of thing that makes me excited! However, that’s not to say it isn’t useful. I’m a much more image oriented person. After watching the videos about typography, I can see how important it is to look at the image it creates with it’s white spaces, gutters, margins, etc. and how it interacts with the other elements on the page.

I’m definitely interested to watch the video lesson about grids. The Typography Part 2 went into it very briefly.  I can see how having a grid layout can create a rhythm and flow of type and images in a layout and how breaking that rhythm could add some visual contrast. 

I just wish it didn’t take me 5+ hours to get through a 2.5hr video. I am seriously so slow because I am trying to follow along and take notes about important information, as well as follow along in inDesign. 

I have been thinking lately about instruction from videos vs. instruction from books. I worry that I’ll have watched something on a video and then later when I need to remember how to do it, I won’t have that information or remember where it was in which video. I don’t know how long I’ll have access to the linkedIn Learning videos. I can’t access the canvas modules from previous weeks so any embedded videos are gone for me unless I bookmarked them in my browser.  A book on the other hand can be highlighted and referred back to quite easily, but it pales in its ability to demonstrate like videos do. I wish there were a happy medium, like a video series with accompanying written reference notes. 

Fonts and Frustrations

On Monday I checked in to see what was going to be going on for class this week. My professor normally puts up the module for the week on Monday afternoon.  When I logged in to Canvas, I saw that she had posted an announcement telling us that Monday was a holiday. She would still have her zoom, but otherwise to enjoy our time off.  When no module was posted on Monday afternoon, I assumed there was not going to be any class for the week.  

Today I opened up canvas to look up the directions for an assignment for a different class and noticed that I had two assignments for THIS class due tomorrow.  It's not a big deal. I have time to get it all done, even though I'm late doing the discussion. However, I really wish professors would be considerate and let their class know when they are going to post the module on a day other than the usual day. 

So today I learned I should never assume that there is no class for the week.  

Catching up on all of the lecture/videos in module 3 today, I learned about accessing the many fonts Adobe has to offer.  I was confused by all of the references to TypeKit.  I kept searching and trying to figure out how to access this marvel, only to discover that it's not TypeKit anymore; it's Adobe Fonts. Lo and behold,  I have already learned how to access Adobe Fonts when I was following along in one of the LinkeInLearning videos.

My favorite thing was watching the Terry White video called "InDesign Special Effects".  I enjoyed learning about making type into and outline and combining it with other frames to create really interesting effects.  

New Beginnings

I went to blogger.com to create this blog and discovered that I was already logged in because my old blogger account was absorbed into my google account.  The last time I blogged was in 2015. Blogging used to be how I kept friends and family up to date. Then Facebook came along and blogging slowly faded away.  And now here I am blogging again, but my great aunt Carol in Georgia will not be reading it. 

The first week of class is coming to a close.  I can tell that I’m going to really have to carve out a solid schedule to make this class work around my schedule. For example, we’re supposed to watch three hours of LinkedIn Learning videos per week.  But watching three hours really takes 6 hours if you are following along in InDesign and attempting to do what the video shows.  I’m lucky that I can watch the videos on my iPad so I don’t have to toggle between windows on my laptop, but I still have to continually pause the video so I can find the tools on my screen and attempt to follow what the instructor is doing.  

The Quick Start Guide by Kladi was definitely fast paced.  She was talking a mile a minute and there were several times when I had to back up and rewatch because I didn’t see what she did. The course by David Blatner is much better. I like being able to access the files he was demonstrating on so I could follow along.  I feel like I have a good grasp of creating new documents in inDesign and the various parameters that you can change when creating that document.  I also learned how to create text frames and image frames and how to place text and images.  I have made many a flyer in Photoshop, so I can definitely see how inDesign is far superior for page layouts.