Molli Brown
Justification Paper – Printmaking Unit
Boise State University
EdTech 506 – Graphic Design for Education
User Assumptions:
Users of this unit will be students in grades 6th -8th, which is about 12-15 years of age in the subject content of art. It has been designed for students in the state of Pennsylvania and meets seven of the state’s eighth grade standards for the Arts and Humanities. The lessons in the unit are designed for students to learn about three different types of printmaking, their associated printing processes, and learning to develop ideas for artworks that are personal to them. The lessons require independent exploration on the part of the student, along with teacher guided demonstrations, and collaborative learning by working with other classmates for sharing ideas and printing. The website which houses the unit, lesson plans, and resources should be used by learners as an independent guide, a review, and a place where they can find enriching resources on the topics.
This unit is not meant to be one where students work through the lessons on the website independently. It is imperative that students understand how to navigate through the website in combination with teacher instruction and demonstrations. The lessons on the website exist to help encourage independent learning, acts as a review, and also helps to further students’ knowledge and understanding of the subject of printmaking.
The website also acts as a multimodal form of instruction which can be helpful for students depending on the way that they learn best. There is textual information, plenty of graphics for visual learners, and some videos incorporated for differentiated instruction.
Graphic Description
Graphic 1 – Introductory Image to Unit (first image on Home page)
This image is designed to inform students about what printmaking is and that there are different types that exist and a brief definition of six of them. Shape is used here to help viewers to differentiate between the types of printmaking they will be making in this unit (solid lined ovals) and other forms that they are simply being informed of (dotted lined ovals). Shape is also used to create relationships between the main term ‘printmaking’ and each of the types that surround that word. Printmaking is the only term with a rectangular shape around it and it also has all the arrows coming out from the rectangle. The terms each arrow is point to are the types of printmaking and they are all surrounded with ovals making them associated.
Graphic 2 – Printmaking with Typography (second image on Home page)
This image was created using typography to help students to understand the meaning behind each word by its associated imagery. Typography is helpful in communicating more than just words, it can further understanding and help students to make associations between the imagery and the words better than just writing the word in a plain font (Kuhlmann, 2010).
The typography designed for these words is relatively simple. The word printmaking incorporates an image of a stamp to help users make the association with printmaking and making multiples, which is the basic concept of printmaking. The other three terms are simplistic in forms of the imagery created to describe them. The term collagraph is shown as being very textured like the materials on a collagraph printing plate would be. Relief Printing is supposed to look like a wood block or piece of linoleum that has been cut into with the shavings from the block sitting around it. Last, the term silkscreen is supposed to look like how a silkscreen looks when it is being printed. The background is textured like a screen and the word is a bit darker to look as if the ink had gone through the screen in the space within the letters.
Graphic 3 – Brainstorm for Printmaking
This image acts as a means for students to organize their thoughts and ideas for each of the three types of prints that they will be creating. At the top of the image around the title there is a brain with a storm coming out of it which is kind of playful to help students maybe not take this part of the assignment so seriously but to relax and delve into their creative side.
A small paragraph of text containing the directions follows the title and below that at the top of each column the typography from the last image has been included to help students again make associations between the types of prints they are coming up with ideas for.
Graphic 4 – Positive and Negative Space
This image, which is associated with the relief printing lesson, shows students options they have in terms of space. Their final print could look very different depending on which areas of their image they want to be positive and which they want to be negative. The simple picture of a bird that I created shows these options clearly. By making the images too complex they would have the opposite effect and act to confuse learners rather than clarify the information.
Notice that under each image there is a short description of how the space in each picture has been changed. The proximity of the text to the picture clearly shows which text is associated with which picture in the graphic (Clark & Lyons, 2010).
Graphic 5 – Relief Printing (2)
There are many new tools when creating and printing relief prints therefore creating these images showing the steps for how to print one seemed necessary. The images associated with each step are clear and show what tools students will need when working through each of the steps. Actual photographs versus drawn graphics help students to make associations with how their materials will look in reality. This graphic utilizes color, a black rectangle for the title and gray rectangles for each of the steps, to keep the space and information organized. Color in this case is used to increase students’ task speed by helping them locate the information they need more easily as color makes important information stand out and improves learner selection (Lohr, 2008). The number of each step has a drop shadow to catch the user’s eye and draw it from one step to the next. Again, as with the previous image, proximity of the text boxes helps students to clearly associate the textual information with the correct picture.
Graphic 6 – Collagraphs
The graphic created for collagraphs is essential in pointing out to students exactly what different materials will look like when they are printed. The five magnified areas of the image help the user to focus on what just that particular area looks like. Separating the magnification from the textual explanation of each by placing it at the bottom of the page helped to organized the image, keeping it from looking too cluttered.
Graphic 7 – Collagraph Printing Plate
This image is a relatively simplistic one but helpful for students as they choose materials of which to make their collagraph printing plates out of. Using shapes to encase the heading of each column, bold type and underlines keeps the graphic organized. The items in each column are not only separated by placement but also by either a star or an X next to them instead of just a simple bullet. These shapes reinforce what materials can be used and what can’t.
Graphic 8- Silkscreen Printing
This graphic is similar to the relief printing graphic in terms of how it is organized. This graphic was important to have because silkscreen printing is much different than the first two types students learned about. Silkscreen printing uses different materials and the imagery is created for our print, using a paper stencil.
Design Process
Repeat-ability, which is something that is extremely valuable and convenient in online learning and is not always available in traditional learning formats, is part of what makes the online portion of this unit so key (Smith, 2008). It allows for students that need information that is typically introduced to them once or maybe twice and then expected for them to just remember, to be available to them in the event that they need to go back and reread it and refresh their memory. As students are able to go through portions of this unit without direct instruction, it forces them to become more independent learners.
The design of each webpage within the unit employs chunking to help with the pace at which students learn the information being presented to them. Chunking is important as it can help students to focus on one key piece of information at a time (Principles, 2010). Each page within the lesson has a heading, text, a graphic possibly more text and another graphic, and then resources at the bottom of the page. These chunks keep each page interesting and easy to navigate through. The repetition of layout of each page allows for greater usability helping students to locate what they are looking for on each page easier.
The importance of the visuals throughout this unit is critical. Adding graphics can increase student motivation, add meaning to the content of each lesson, and increase aesthetic appeal (Gutierrez, 2012).
Introduction Page
When creating the introduction page it was important to keep a balance of textual information and visuals. Avoiding visual overload by keeping unnecessary text and other extraneous information from cluttering up the space helps students to process the information more easily (Gutierrez, 2012). It was a challenge trying to keep this balance while ensure users would be given enough information to fully grasp the concept of printmaking, different process, tools associated with each process, and what types of products are created from each. I kept this balance by including text, useful graphics in each of the previous mentioned areas of focus, and some links to further resources.
Lessons One through Four
Each lesson stems from lesson one, the brainstorming lesson, where students jot down and sketch various ideas they might have for each type of print they will be creating. As learners become more informed about each type of print, how it is created, and look at more examples of the end result, their ideas might change or should at least become narrowed down from their original list.
Lesson two through four can really be done in any order than an instructor would choose. They weren’t placed in the order they are in for any particular reason, which makes it convenient for the instructor. Each of these lessons allows for students to experience creating each type of print from scratch to see how diverse the art making process of printmaking is.
Each lesson page incorporates one or more graphic images that will help students to work more independently through the unit. There are two graphics, one for relief printing and one for silkscreening, that show step by step images for how to complete each of these. These images are to help provide memory support to learners (Clark & Lyons, 2010). One teacher demonstration of a process may or may not be enough for learners to remember how to work through the process on their own. These images and brief textual cues offer this.
References
Clark, Ruth C.; Lyons, Chopeta (2010). Graphics for Learning : Proven Guidelines for Planning, Designing, and Evaluating Visuals in Training Materials. Retrieved from http://www.boisestate.eblib.com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=624441
Gutierrez, Karla. (2012, November 13). Back to Basics: The Essential Elements of Effective eLearning [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/bid/243094/Back-to-Basics-The-Essential-Elements-of-Effective-eLearning
Kuhlmann, Tom. (2010, January 12). How Fonts Take a Starring Role in Your E-Learning Courses [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/how-fonts-take-a-starring-role-in-your-e-learning-courses/
Lohr, L. L. (2008). Creating Graphics for Learning Performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Principles of Online Design for eLearning Resource. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.elearningminds.com/pdf/Content_PrinciplesofOnlineDesign-2InfoPresentation.pdf
Smith, R. M. (2008). Conquering the content: A step-by-step guide to online course design. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass.