Back to Inspiration
|
|
Designing with My Audience in MindDaily my audience is my students but for the purpose of my Capstone Project, I needed to think about who would have access to my website and who would be interested in my research topic. I considered that my audience would be educators and most likely primary teachers. I assumed that many teachers had some previous knowledge about meditation and perhaps mindfulness, but I wanted to present a clear description of the practice so that there were not any misconceptions. My action research followed a mixed method model in order to best tell the story of my findings through assessments, observations and interviews. For the Capstone itself, I wanted visuals to engage my audience and keep them interested. I wanted my design to help the audience connect with the topic and easily navigate the resources. In general, I wanted my audience to know that it was them I had in mind when presenting my work.
Designing My Capstone: Prototype
A mind-map using Bubble.us My overall design has seen a few changes but mapping out the plan was extremely helpful in organizing my ideas and pulling all of my work together. 
Tech Tools Integrate with the Mindfulness Capstone
My Logo Process 
My logo process was a challenge as I needed to bring together some incongruous images, including some that were not so visually pleasing. Brains are amazing but rarely pretty. I started with the lotus flower image but was concerned that those not familiar with Buddhist symbolism would not make the connection. I decided to make it a part of the image but not the center piece. I wanted to add the image of the brain in the middle in order to be literal in my interpretation of being mindful and placing the mind at the center of where all learning takes place. It was hard to find a visually appealing brain that was not too busy or distracting. The brain I chose seems to resemble a heart, so I thought that was the best fit. The need to let my audience know that technology was an important aspect to my Capstone led me to the phone or tablet which are the devices that the students used to access the digital apps. I played with the color and tried green after we learned that it has a more educational feel but the pink just looked better, so it stayed. It is not a color that I am drawn to so it surprises me that I chose it. As far as the wording, I liked the idea of the play on the word mindful as to imply a mind that is full. I then added the 'modern tools for an ancient practice' because I liked the opposing ideas of modern and ancient. The logo process was a new and exciting one. I worked hard to bring together all of my ideas with clarity and purpose. I hope that I succeeded. Assigned Reading On The Topic Of Design
In The Power of Questions, "Beverly Falk and Megan Blumenreich make connections between investigating issues related to your practice and designing research curricula for your students, citing examples of real teacher researchers' studies as they provide advice, study questions, and exercises to help you get started.'
Baggio's "The Visual Connection: You Listen With Your Eyes is about using visuals to help people learn. It offers simple tips that can be implemented for little or no money. "The Visual Connection" makes training materials, presentations, eLearning modules and PowerPoint screens better for learning."
White Space is Not Your Enemy, by "Designing a website or brochure without an art background? Then step away from the computer and read this engaging, conversational introduction to visual communications first. Written for the beginner, White Space is Not Your Enemy, Second Edition, is a practical graphic design and layout guide that introduces the concepts and practices necessary for producing effective visual communication across a variety of formats--from web to print."
Pebbles-in-the Pond Model For Instructional Design by M. David Merrill
This article "describes an instructional design model that has been effective for implementing instruction based on these principles [displayed below]. This model is not a substitute for ISD [Instructional Systems Design] but a content-centered modification of more traditional ISD that facilitates incorporating first principles into an instructional product."
|
Research
Support and Next Steps
|
