Photographing a School Event

This weekend we have a plethora of school activities taking place.  This is the perfect situation to assign budding photographers from beginning classes to shoot some of the minor events.  It will give them an ego boost and give you the benefit of having everything covered.  It will also show the adviser who is willing to step up and become serious about pursuing photography.  If the beginners miss their assignment, then very little is lost.  If they produce even one clear photo from the event assigned, you're in business.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Old School Layouts

My Yearbook I class is enormous this year, so I had to resort to an old school method of teaching layout.  With limited computer space, I ordered layout sheets from the yearbook company and regressed to teaching basic layout using those.  The students didn't know the difference and have had a great time pasting up layouts.  This is a wonderful tactile assignment that burns several days of instructional time; however, it allows the students a new experience.  You can also introduce the math concepts of measurement with this old fashioned assignment. 

Copyright & Photos

The Student Press Law Center publishes the Report, a journal for advisers and journalism students to catch up on the latest scholastic press law cases and pending legal actions.  In the Winter 2010-2011 issue which I received yesterday, there is a great piece on Copyright.  Log on to SPLC.org to read Chelsea Keenan's My Photos article or turn to page 26 in the SPLC Report.

Design-Page 1

Here is a quick Powerpoint to get your beginning classes started with basic front page design.

Design Powerpoint

Beginning Design Day 1

To introduce your beginning classes to design, assign them to bring in a magazine that appeals to them OR if you have a stockpile of magazines, have them select one from your library.  Have them look through the pages and choose three pages that "look" good.  Do this at the beginning of the instruction.

Then, begin with a basic introduction to the elements of design.  Show them examples of how each element is used to create a page design.  Apply each element to the samples they selected from their magazine.  After the basic instruction on design elements, have them critique the pages they selected.

This is a simple activity to get the creative design juices flowing, but more importantly, it gets the students looking at magazines in a whole other way.  Content becomes an afterthought...now they are choosing designs based on their knowledge of design elements.