Comic Book Design Part 2

I will admit that this comic book project took me vastly outside of my comfort zone. I do not feel as if I am either sufficiently creative or talented as my colleagues in this class. After having these thoughts, I have to and I quote "suck it up, buttercup," to create this final project before my practicum will commence in August 2016.

Upon crafting my story board and coming up with the story line, I believe that my comic book might have been overly ambitious. As I am not a teacher, I wanted to relate a specific part of my job, handling cases informally and referring them to Athens Peer Court. I wanted to convey a "typical" (or as typical as can be) case that would be referred to Athens Peer Court, a girl fight. We have a great number of girl fights in the Athens-Clarke County community. Girl fights are a great problem within our community at both the Middle and High School levels.

Athens Peer Court was started in 2012 as an alternative to receiving a punishment or consequence from a probation officer. Since I have worked in this environment since 2006, things have changed greatly. I used to be able to implement a consequence for a given offense rather than referring first offenders to this program. This is one of our Judge's pet programs, and we are now referring all first offenders who want to admit to their charge to this program.

Given that I have over ten years experience handling Informal Adjustments, I have developed a script for handling a general Informal Adjustment case. Given that I have this very well-defined script in my head, I had a very well-defined script that I wanted to follow and I sought images that would, at least, fit this vision accordingly.

Of course, I know that I need to have public domain images/clip art and/or Creative Commons Licensed photographs. I have curated the photographs I utilized on a pinterest page rather than creating a works cited page on the end of the comic book. The photographs I chose were to reflect the seriousness (but also lightness of the process). Yes, some of the people were not the same, however, it does reflect the process of Peer Court and also reflects the actions involved in the process.

Comic Life 3, once it downloaded (it took a very looooong time to download, even on faster cable based internet service), was an easy enough product to utilize. I do not feel as if it stifled my creativity. If anything, I think that this enhanced whatever creativity I possess. Comic Life 3 gave me guidelines for where to insert media, gave me guidelines for using dialog and text that were very appropriate. I had to have technical assistance for one thing (inserting my selfie into the program) from my comic book geek husband. When he helped me, he decided that he liked the program and wanted to use it for himself. He did criticize (well, not even criticize, just let me know) that I used thought bubbles for dialog rather than speech bubbles. I utilized these thought bubbles so that I could move the tail according to where the actor was on the page, if this makes sense.

I think that the design decisions I am most proud of are incorporating real-life pictures of the process. I think that including myself, Juvenile Court Deputy Clerk Mallory Crane, and even the exterior of Juvenile Court, gave this comic book a personalized touch. I would revisit having uniform actors in each scene, possibly determining if a Peer Court volunteer or even a former respondent, would be sign off on volunteering for this project.

I apologize for my drawing skills and also changing my script after completing the storyboard. As part of this process, I completed the storyboard prior to completing the script, prior to looking for media and actually completing the comic book. Yes, this is vastly out of order, and I would probably do it differently when I do a comic book again. However, I think that this attempt was pretty good for a first (and only attempt) at a comic book was adequately done.

Comic Book Design Part 1

This is a project where my perfectionistic nature has reared its ugly head. Which is not fun at all, because I am not very artistically inclined whatsoever. Needless to say, thinking about and planning for this project has stretched my boundaries. I love to read comic books but never thought that I would be able to create one. 

I have given a considerable amount of thought to the topic and content for this comic book. In my "Real Life," I have been employed as a Juvenile Probation Officer for the past 10 years. I have handled thousands of cases for juvenile offenders. In all my experience some of the most common types of cases we handle at the Athens-Clarke County Juvenile Court are either affray or disorderly conduct at schools. Affray is a fancy word for fighting in a public place. Disorderly Conduct can be classified as causing a disruption. Frequently, children charged with Disorderly Conduct have interfered with the operations of a school, a business, or somewhere in the general public. Students can get charged with Disorderly Conduct if they are bystanders in an Affray case. 

For juveniles who are "first offenders," or those who have not gotten into trouble in over a year or two, these cases are handled outside of Court in an Informal manner. The great majority of these cases are referred to Athens Peer Court for the juvenile's peers to recommend the outcome of their cases. I follow through to ensure that they complete these requirements (community service, jury duty, apology letters, and the like). 

Essentially, I want my comic book to convey the process of incurring the charge, the Court processing it, and handling the case Informally with the outcome of Athens Peer Court. My main objective is to help juvenile offenders navigate this process in an easy manner. Yes, this is a very serious process, don't get me wrong. However, juveniles should have an understanding of what is going on their lives. 

This comic book will be geared toward the great majority of juveniles I encounter who incur affray charges, females. There is a rather large "Girl Fight" problem at both the Middle School and High School levels within the Athens-Clarke County community. This comic book will use language appropriate for Middle and High School students and will tell this story in a lively and appropriate manner. 

On Website Creation Part 2

In the world of website design and creation, I feel as if I am an intermediate beginner. I have had to create websites for other classes but am by no stretch of the imagination what anyone would call an expert. I was excited during the completion of this task because I was able to learn so much more about website design. There are a gracious plenty background aspects to designing the simplistic and elegant websites that so many of us love. 

The process of creating a cover image, icons, and images was honestly one that gave me fits and sent me into a tailspin at times. I have never created a new cover image for either twitter or facebook and was daunted by the process in the beginning. Canva proved to be a wonderful tool for designing a facebook/twitter cover photo. I honestly cannot say enough positive things about the Canva experience. The one downside to Canva is that I was not able to have a background created from scratch (or at least not in a manner that I could figure out). It would have been beneficial to have the freedom to create a background from scratch within Canva. For example, I would have liked the opportunity to pick my own background, border or no border, and script versus having to adapt it from a pre-existing template. Regardless of having to use the pre-existing template, I was able to personalize this photo and place a Civil Rights/inclusive feel to the image by including some of the free graphics (rainbow hearts). 

I did not experience the same ease of creation when I started working on the icons, however. Having never really been a super duper creative person, I was gobsmacked by my lack of creativity when working on the icons for this site. When I first read this directive, I did not understand and/or realize that I had to create the icons. I found several, beautiful, free icons on IconFinder that were free and required no linkback (therefore, Creative Commons-esque). I thought I was in business because the graphics I used were gorgeous. However, I re-read the directions and realized just how off the mark I really was, and then I wanted to cry. After this, I opened up my handy-dandy PowerPoint 2013 and showed the world just how ineffective my creative skills actually are. I created a calendar, Pinterest, and Google Plus icon set. For the calendar, I utilized part of one of the tutorials, and I think that it turned out only okay. I did not follow every single step because I could not figure part of it out. For Pinterest, I created a logo that had the red and white color scheme. It doesn't look anything like the Pinterest logo, but it does have the same color scheme. As far as the Google Plus icon, I really love Stars and I chose to create a star icon based on my love of stars. 

After creating the cover image for Facebook and Twitter, I used this image to "brand" the website. This image was present front and center on every page of the website. Since websites should be image heavy, I chose to utilize Weebly's Creative Commons search and find images that were related to the theme of Civil Rights. As related previously, these images were all gained through a Creative Commons search within Weebly and proper attribution was made at the bottom of the page.

I cannot say enough positive things about using Weebly's template driven design features. Weebly takes the difficulty of coding and creating design elements out of the mix. Having previously authored websites using CSS and HTML, anything where I do not have to write CSS/HTML, makes me extremely happy. I do NOT feel as if Weebly stifled my creativity in any way whatsoever. Weebly has a wide variety of attractive layouts and you can insert many different types of media from a wide variety of locations. If I had a Media Specialist position, I would seriously contemplate using Weebly to host my Media Center's website.

The design decision I am most proud of in regards to this website is the Canva cover I created to unify all platforms (Weebly, Facebook, and Twitter). Branding is one of the topics that was recently talked about recently at the Georgia Library Media Association 2016 Summer Institute. Branding is very important to your Media Center's web presence. The area that I would most like to change would be icon creation. If I were able to, I would use the free icons without the need for attribution to jazz my website up, rather than it looking homemade (it really does, but I did my best). 

On Website Creation Part 1

I have previously made websites for other classes and consider myself to be somewhat advanced in website design and creation. Even with having proficiency and a keen interest in website creation, I still find myself stumped and sometimes scared during the website creation process. My perfectionistic tendencies tend to get the better of me during the website design and creation process. I always try to find ways in which I could make the site better and sometimes become bogged down in the details.  When thinking about my App Smashing project, I decided to create a model Civil Rights club that could serve to inform High School students about Civil Rights struggles within the United States. The audience for this fictional website is High School students at the fictional Lawrence High School in Cheek County, Georgia, general high school students, and also the general web searching public.

I had a great time creating the App Smashing work product using ThingLink. The App Smash was created about one of my favorite topics, the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia History. For purposes of this website, I decided to extend this topic a bit further than Georgia’s boundaries. I decided to have more inclusive information about more current topics. The essential information I wanted to convey to my target audience is that the Civil Rights struggle is a REAL, CURRENT, daily struggle for certain individuals and groups. It is easy to get enmeshed in a bubble such as High School, where your own problems are readily at the forefront of your mind, and students really need to escape this bubble and think about people who have real, ongoing, daily struggles for their Civil Rights.

Given this very interesting topic, I sought to do it justice in a creative and effective way. This was a very daunting process. I know we all know the old adage that with great power comes great responsibility. This situation is a great power/great responsibility situation because young minds can be so easily influenced. It is critically important that correct information be spread about this very important and delicate topic.

Design Considerations
            
Prior to reading the materials in this week’s Module, I would have just jumped into this project headfirst with no consideration to design whatsoever. I would have just picked designs that I thought were interesting and visually attractive. I guess I am sort of a minimalist because when I design, I like to have stark pages that are free from busy and distracting elements.

Siepert (2015) establishes that users seldom read all materials presented on a webpage; instead, users will click on items that are interesting and will click on things of interest to them (para 3). Given this information, I do not take offense if users do not read every single kernel of information on this page.

Weebly, the website platform I chose to utilize in order to build my website is absolutely 100% amazing and user-friendly when it comes to building. Thankfully, this site allows for inclusion of Creative Commons images. Within Weebly, creators are allowed to import images from your computer, from a website, or from Flickr. I cannot express how much I love Flickr’s interface within Weebly. Weebly takes the hard work out of this process because it will create citations at the bottom of the page.

After beginning this process, there are many more considerations I have about the design process. I am intimidated by the creation of icons and will probably outline this process in my next blog post. Until then, I wish my fellow classmates good luck in the design process. I am very excited to see everyone else’s websites because I am sure that I can learn from everyone else!!

 

 

App Smashing Reflection

This App Smash was created to impart information about the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia. My preferred grade level is either Middle School or High School and this App Smash would be appropriate for either 8th graders studying Georgia History or 10th graders studying United States History. This App Smash would either meet the 8th-grade History content standard SS8H11 The student will evaluate the role of Georgia in the modern civil rights movement. This would also meet United States History content standard SSUSH22 The student will identify dimensions of the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1970.

The App Smash is appropriate for this audience of either 8th graders or 10th graders because it engages students in a wide variety of ways. Students will be able to engage with various primary and secondary sources rather than simply listen to a teacher or Media Specialist prattle on about this topic. Learning can also be customized or differentiated utilizing Universal Design for Learning.

I chose the apps I did for this App Smash because of a wide variety of reasons. I had previously created a ThingLink as part of a content curation assignment for another class. I verified that the links were working (a great majority of them were not) and updated them accordingly. Once I updated the links and ensured that they were all appropriate, I created a PowToon video and then uploaded it to YouTube. Each of these apps was chosen because they are very user-friendly. This topic was chosen because this is one of my favorite topics I love to learn about.

I specifically chose various types of media for this project that are evocative. Each type of material presents very specific attitudes and gives the viewer a feel for what attitudes certain individuals faced and what attitudes others presented. For example, there is a video clip of students reacting to the integration of the University of Georgia in January 1961. The attitudes exhibited by many of the UGA students would be jarring to students in the present day. In contrast, there is also a video of an SNCC official discussing the Civil Rights Act. Opposing viewpoints always provide the best understanding of what was actually occurring during a period of time.

There are several design decisions I have made of which I am very proud. I am very proud of the topic chosen for this App Smash. My passion for and love of this topic is front and center. I do not think that I fully understood the concept of App Smashing, but I made my best effort. I think that I could have included more tools in the App Smash, and might try to incorporate another tool. (Note: I have begun a S'more about this topic for potential inclusion in the App Smash).

I adapted this App Smash from a content curation that I had previously submitted for another class. Since I had to update the links for this assignment, the other assignment reflects the changes. This is a good thing, though, because some of the links were dead. I did not use a previously prepared App Smash, though. I did make changes, though, in that I added in the YouTube video and rather than use a button that was similar, I used the letter A for this tag. If/when I create the S'more link, I will use the letter B for that link.

App Smashing Work Product

App Smashing was a very new and unique concept for me. To make my life a bit easier, I chose to update a previously completed assignment that I created using ThingLink roughly six months ago. This project covers one of my favorite topics, Georgia History, specifically the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia. For this project, I have curated resources (spoken word, video, pictures, and editorial cartoons) about the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia. This was created with an advanced 8th-grade audience. This would also work for a 10th grade United States History audience.

This App Smash fits into the overall vision for my site in a variety of ways. First and foremost, the ultimate goal of this smash is to encourage creative and critical thinking with my students. Rather than just simply working on a worksheet or doing a very boring and static project, this App Smash is meant to be very exciting and a unique way to learn about this topic.

Michelle Colquitt Introduction

Hi, Everyone: Welcome to my FRIT 7335 Design Journal. Please watch this introductory video for information about me.

I hope everyone has a wonderful semester!!

Please feel free to contact me via email at mc06448@georgiasouthern.edu to collaborate.