Project Yearbook
At the beginning of the school
year I was given the project of teaching a yearbook class to a group of 12 eighth
grade students. The goal was for them to design and create the yearbook for the
school year, under my direction. I was given the project because the person
that originally had this task of putting the book together suddenly quit and
left the school. They did not ask me if I wanted to do it they basically told
me I was doing it. I was chosen to take over because I had a fairly strong
background in graphic design so they thought those skills would make the
transition easier for the students and that the book would be completed in a
timely manner... I basically went into this assignment blind because I had no
knowledge of the software they were using or how to add photos, articles or
anything for that matter. I was very nervous at first because I did not know
how I was going to teach this course to a group of kids and I wasn’t familiar
with the software at all.
I had about a week to familiarize myself with
the software and learn the functions. There were video tutorials included so
that I could grasp the concept of how to use the program but it did not cover
every detail, it covered just enough for basic navigation. I began to navigate
different places within the site myself and learn the functions on my own in
order to become more advanced in using it.
When the time came to start the course with the students I
had learned quite a bit about the program, at least being confident enough to
instruct a class on it. I was beginning to show them how to create various page
layouts, insert article, and activity photos. I had a student who was doing a
layout for grade level photos and she asks me “Ms. Wright how do I insert these
photos because I’m not allowed to click and drag them like the others?” I’m
thinking to myself, that’s a function I did not learn how to do yet. To assist
her in solving that problem I went back to my computer and quickly viewed the
tutorial on that function and went back over to the student and helped her
navigate through adding the grade level photos.
In looking back at the course, things that contributed to
its success even though it was a last minute project for me I still found a way
to get through it by planning lessons for the students, assigning them specific
roles and duties to make them feel as though they were a major part of the
process, and learning the program. Also if I failed at this I would fail them
and I didn’t want to be responsible for doing that.
Artifacts that were not included in the process that could
have been were, providing more visual presentations to assist in the
understanding of the software to the students. They had to learn it just as I did
so for instructional tools I could have used the tutorials and created
activities to assist them in learning verses me just giving direct instruction.
