Visual Design Trends Teachers (And Everyone) Should Know About

By Colin Hussey

The web, and technology devices in general, are constantly changing, and it’s hard (even if you’re a seasoned “Googler” like me) to keep up with all the latest developments.

It is wearable devices like Google Glass and Pebble which are set to be all the rage this year, and who’d have thought just a few years ago, that we’d now be considering walking around with a computer on our head. However, a recent white paper from Merge, a Digital Strategy Agency (Merge White Paper: Web Design Trends for 2014 and Beyond) came up with two interesting observations for web design trends in 2014. Keep these trends in mind as you use technology in your classrooms: Simple is good. Interactive is good.

Simple, Simple, Simple

The first is simplified design. The white paper mentions that “we will see design continue to be simplified with single page websites, flat design, fixed headers and minimalism overall, powered partly by the necessity of mobile requirements and partly by what the consumers want (as evidenced by the simple elegance of the iPhone and Windows 8 UI design)”.

In a world where new technology is forever pushing the boundaries of design, it seems that actually, what we’re now doing is stripping back the complicated elements, and following the golden rule of simplicity.

Some of the advantages of simple web design, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality, include: the website is easier to navigate; important content can take centre stage (and isn’t lost in the background); simple code is easier to debug; and the website will load faster.

So what does this mean for students, and how we teach web design in the classroom? It means that students should consider less complex web designs and instead of asking themselves what’s missing in a design, they should perhaps ask themselves what could in fact be taken away.

They can play around with the concept of a single page website, where all the content lives on a single web page. An example of an accomplished single page website is Milk and Pixels, a designer of web applications: http://milkandpixels.com.

They can have a go at flat design, where there are no shadows, reflections or beveled edges. They could consider why some pages have fixed headers, where the user can scroll through a page and its content, yet still see the header even if they are at the bottom of the page.

In this way, post web design project, students can consider whether each and every element on their own web pages are really needed. A simple design can (arguably) leave more time for creative thinking in regards to each and every one of the elements on each page.

Interactive Graphics

The second interesting observation for web design trends in 2014 according to Merge’s white paper was “Interactive Infographics”. Infographics have taken the digital world by storm and have become a popular way to take data and present it in a visual, colorful and clear way.

There are a number of tools out there that allow you to make your graphics interactive. You can use them to create scrolling effects, mouseover effects, or allow users to enter some of their own information to make the data more personalized and useful to them! These types of features do take a little more time and effort than static images, but the end result can be much more exciting and motivating for the student! 

Post Source : http://www.edudemic.com/visual-design-trends/

Contact Us -

Web- www.mschools.co.in, www.linkites.com

Email - enquiry@mschools.co.in, info@linkites.com

Phone - +91-731-2401952

Skype - mschools, linkites

                         

mSchools Subscription Plans

Contact Us -

Web- www.mschools.co.in, www.linkites.com

Email - enquiry@mschools.co.in, info@linkites.com

Phone - +91-731-2401952

Skype - mschools, linkites

                              

Apps in Education

How To Use Apps In Education

By Nikolaos Chatzopoulos

If you are a teacher that uses an iPad, chances are that you are familiar with the following scenario. You found this amazing app that can really help your struggling students. The potential of this app is great, as it appears that this particular app can tap your students’ creativity and allow them to thrive in ways that were unthinkable until now. The problem is that this app can only accomplish a small number of things, which prevents the students from completing a multidimensional project. So what do you do now?

Due to the unfortunate fact that there isn’t a “silver bullet app” yet- an app that can accomplish many, very different tasks- we have to rely on teachers’ and students’ creativity in order to accomplish multi-step tasks using the iPad. Thankfully, app smashing, – the process of using many different apps in conjunction with one another to accomplish a task- as Greg Kulowiec ofEdTechTeacher defines it, comes to fill the void and opens the door for endless opportunities for teachers and students to unleash their creativity and use the power of the iPad to create some extraordinary products.

What is App Smashing?

The basic premise behind app smashing, sometimes referred to as “app synergy”, is to find a number of key apps that “play well” with other apps and can communicate information across platforms. Some of the native iPad apps have this capacity. Also, Explain Everything, arguably one the most comprehensive, Swiss-Army type apps ever created, is ideal for such tasks. However, the app that is the most powerful and is used in almost every app smashing activity is Apple’s Camera App. It allows the user to store pictures, video, and sound files, which can be accessed later by other apps, which is what makes app smashing possible.

In a typical app smashing activity a student can use an app to create a product such as a word cloud, a picture collage, a map, or a slide show presentation. Then the student can save his/her creation on the Camera App, even if the product in this stage is not a picture (just click the Home and the Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously and your idevice will take a screen shot). From there, the student can choose to open those pictures in other apps that build additional layers of creativity. For instance apps such as Explain Everything, ThingLink, 30Hands, Haiku Deck, or Book Creator, can be used in that stage of the project for further annotation, feedback, analysis, or evaluation. Finally, the student might choose to import one, or multiple projects, in iMovie and create a final product that truly redefines his/her learning experience. The last step should also include publishing the final product in appropriate and accessible ways.

App Smashing’s Target Audience

Although my personal work has been directed towards the elementary school audience – for those with limited iPad experience in the classroom, as well as for those who are proficient users of the iPad – I found that students and teachers of all grade levels find the concept of app smashing exhilarating. Our middle school students for instance, have used app smashing to create social studies reports, and some of our fifth graders have used app smashing to illustrate their high order thinking in multifaceted ways. My fourth grade students have used app smashing to create augmented reality projects as well as their own science iBooks. They loved every second of the process and were very proud of the, admittedly, high quality products.

Some Final Thoughts

App smashing projects have the ability to enable student collaboration to produce creative and innovative answers to problems. In addition, due to the fact that app smashing encourages creativity and innovation, it appears that every app smashing activity is aligned to several Language Arts and Math Common Core Standards across grade levels. It is truly amazing to watch students unleash their innate creativity by building extraordinary technology projects using the iPad. Undoubtedly, app smashing creates unique opportunities for teachers and students to explore and discover the true power of the iPad.

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/app-smashing-education/

www.mschools.co.in

sharad@mschools.co.in

                    SKYPE: linkites, saket.dandotia, sharad.gour, sonal.khandelwal8