Post 5

What do graphic design and page layout have to do with contemporary literacy and learning? Hmmm...interesting question. I do know that my students are very technologically savvy. Many of them have myspace accounts, and even those who do not are at least frequent internet users. I would guess that my students read more from graphically designed page layouts (web pages, magazines, etc.) than from traditional books. I know from my own teaching experiece that instructional material that contains pictures can greatly aid student comprehension. I suppose the question becomes whether that is a good thing or not. Should the instructor use whatever material works best for student comprehension, or does an excessive use of pictures and diagrams lead to a sort of literary laziness? I do think that as technology becomes more commonplace, teachers will need to be more familiar with graphic design and page layout. Teacher websites are becoming more common as a way of communicating with both students and parents.

As for our weekly assignments...I have been working on a movie-mashup video editing project. My source material comes from DVDs, and I have found that in order to get the video into a format that is compatible with windows movie maker, I not only have to rip the DVD, but then convert it from a vob file to an avi file. The problem is, I end up with a HUGE avi file. My hard drive is literally full, which has made other computing tasks a bit difficult. I don't want to delete the file, because I already have a significant investment of time in the project. I am looking forward to finishing the video project as soon as possible so that I can delete the source file and get my hard drive back.