Reflect of chapter 5 of canvas design

  This chapter is the extra supplement of previous four chapters which tells how to use canvas on mobile device, create collaborations, set up outcomes and rubrics, integrate external apps into canvas and view course analytics and statistics.

  After the chapter reading and relative practice on my own AR course, I almost finished the practice of most canvas features and established a real AR course on canvas.

  At first, I couldn’t log in the canvas app in my phone because I chose a wrong url for access. Fortunately, I figured it out by Angela’s help and Sunny, Sam could also log in the app successfully.

  As you know, the canvas version referred in this book is the old one which suited for users in 2014, so most screenshots showed in chapter are not attached to the newest version which we are using now, particular for mobile device. In this case, the interface of mobile app changes a lot and some features released comparing to the old version.

  For example, the profile in bottom bar was replaced by calendar and removed to the left-top corner, and some features like people and attendance are available now. In addition, collaborations and outcomes are still blocked in app, but they can be opened in browsers as a new window.

  Teachers can view different modules of courses like announcements, calendar, to do list and inbox conversations in mobile app as computer, but it seems like they cannot do specific editing on relative parts and upload document files for assignments in app that it just supports images and video or audio import. The app in mobile device can be a convenient way for quickly course accessing and lightly content editing, teachers need turn to computer version if they want to use rich content editor or other specific operations.

  In the collaborations module of computer version, I have started a new collaborative work about the development of AR by Google Docs. The book introduced the EtherPad for another access to collaboration, but I didn’t find it in the drop-down menu of “collaborate using”. Through the collaborations feature, I can set a collaborative work for groups and arrange students between different groups easily. Students in group need finish the group work collaboratively by Google Docs, It’s really an effective way for teachers to track and credit students’ differentiated work.

  Outcomes module allows teachers to set different outcomes and rubrics for different assignments or courses. To clarify diverse categories of outcomes, teachers can also add different groups for different categories to avoid a mess. Canvas provides common core state standards for English and math teachers that they can import needed common outcomes directly from “find” function and adjust them to their courses based on differentiated purpose. I didn’t use this function because my course is about AR.

  I embedded the rubric I designed contains specific criteria for grading for group presentation to group assignment about the development of AR. The rubric will be displayed automatically in right area of the SpeedGrader interface and help me a lot on grading students’ assignments authentically. But the problem here is that I still cannot arrange grades weighting for different assignments that the final grade is still the average of all the assignment grades.

  I installed external apps of Khan Academy and YouTube to my course so that I can utilize them directly in the rich content editor and search for something interesting or useful for my course without open a new window for them. It’s really efficient for teachers to find and distribute resource to students.

  Because my AR course is just an experiment for practicing canvas features, I can’t get rich information about students’ activities, submissions and grades from course analytics. But it’s really an effective way for teachers to track students’ learning when they implement canvas for real teaching. And through course statistics, they can easily monitor the running statistics of the course they choose. Teachers can use these two functions to differentiate students’ learning in one course and refine their course by authentic statistics for promoting efficiency.

Reflection of chapter 15 and 16 of visual design solutions

  Now, I’m very excited because I have even finished this big book about visual design solutions entirely with serious reading and writing.

  The last two chapters are about how to tell stories with visuals and make numbers interesting. For storytelling, I have experienced it in the process of comic-life project by attaching images and corresponding text specifications together to facilitate viewers’ reading and comprehension. For making numbers interesting, I have also experienced it a lot in China because I need do so many statistics in my normal academic life as a certification of my learning and working progress.

  So this time I don’t want to talk about the chapters I have finished, I just want to talk about my learning experience in past two months.

  To be honest, the high intensity of daily homework always smothers me during past two months, sometimes I feel great desperate for my unfinished homework and projects. Actually, I can rush my homework and projects with lower quality and pass your basic requirement easily. I didn’t do that because I want everything I have done seems perfect so that I can persuade myself to devote most of my time in hardworking.

  In this case, I always try my best to read the chapter and write relative summary and reflection. In the reading process, I need make sure that I can read silently and understand each sentence of chapter. And I also record some new words on my memo app which are often used by author.

  It takes most of my learning time, but I think it’s worthy for me that I got a great progress in vocabulary enriching and oral skills promoting. And I also did much better in English reading and writing from daily relative practicing.

  Although it did a really tough time for me, It’s the best way to motivate my potential in learning that I have finished 4 books reading, 55 summary or reflection writing, 8 visual designs and I even established a CMS and LMS. It’s almost a miracle for me if I were in China for two months’ learning.

  “The rainbow always after the rain days.” I know there will be much more rain days in my later life, but I’m confident to go through it and give a big hug for myself below the rainbow. Thanks for your efforts for us, I know you are hardworking for us this year as well.

Summary of chapter 16 of visual design solutions

  “The display of numerical facts can easily become meaningless.” (page 311) It’s the major reason to think about how to make numbers more comprehensive and liven up their interests for engaging viewers instead of shutting down the interface directly when they see numbers filling in the screen.

  Just like we always pay attention to the typeface of character first and then the specific contents, we need consider about the typeface of numbers first as well.

  Different from text content that proportionate spacing in column can make it legible for viewing, we need use monospaced typeface for numbers in column which allows the same amount of horizontal space on the screen for distinct recognize. In addition, usually the lining figures are better than old-style figures for displaying on the screen because they sit on the baseline as capital letters which can form a unified view easily and engage viewers.

  According to the research of cognitive mechanism in our brain on dealing with numbers for communicating, we have an approximate sense about number than an exact which means that humans usually remember the approximate numbers in long-term memory. So if not necessary, we don’t need provide exact statistics in our presentation. For better memory of these statistics, we can even connect it with similar examples or particular event and experience to make a meaningful relevance for easier recalling.

  There are several effective ways to make numbers presentation more interesting. For example, we can single out a statistical fact which need emphasized by using an impressive typeface in a contrast background to make it stand out. We can also use numbers with images and text together to tell a story and convey some deeper meaning by highlighting numbers in promoting a disease preventing topic. Actually, use symbols and create a metaphor for numbers can also benefit for conveying meaning and make numbers concrete can really decrease viewers’ cognitive efforts on recognizing and remembering numbers.

  For datasets which include lots of collections of data, we need think deeper on how to visualize it for comfortable viewing rather than a few statics for presentation mentioned above.

  “Visualization allows viewers to glean insights and to discover patterns in the data that would not be visible as raw numbers.” (page 322) In this case, we need structure these data to graphs or illustrations for increasing comprehension, sustain attention and add memorability.

  For example, we can make data comparisons by bar graph or pictograph; depict trends over time by line graph; represent parts of a whole by pie charts. These four types of graph are used commonly in data presentation.

  Bar graphs can be placed horizontally or vertically depends on specific purpose, it’s really useful for data comparing and showing specific values in a series. We can group different types of data with diverse contrast colors and place stacked bars on the baseline to make it more legible for viewers to read and understand. If not necessary, do not use 3-D bars because they will burden viewers’ eyes.

  To design pictographs for comparing data, we need choose appropriate values for icons and select corresponding images to represent each category and label each row with values it represents then vertically align icons to help viewers make comparisons.

  Line graphs are benefit for finding trends from lines consist of lots of data dots. Similar with bar graphs, we need use different colors to represent different categories. But we need make sure that those colors should have great contrast between each other to ensure legibility and readability. To emphasize key data, we can make relative represented lines thicker or darker.

  Pie graphs can show the size of each part as a percentage of the whole in order to make comparisons between wedges. (page 331) It’s acceptable to use pie graphs for percentage comparisons, but if we want viewers to make accurate comparison, do not use pie graphs.

  Besides these four data graphs, we can also use data tables to present data directly. Comparing to the data graphs, data tables are as visible as graphs but they are more remarkable. But before we decide to use data tables for presenting data especially for comparison, we need get clear about our purpose, improve readability, clarify the numbers inside and use some typographic principles to make the table more effective and efficient.