Newsletter: Internet Safety Newsletter

Internet Safety Newsletter

Annotation

Context and Conditions

This project was one of the projects assigned in Fall 2007 for MIT 512: Computer Applications in Education and was supervised by Dr. Sue-Jen Chen. The purpose of this assignment was to design and develop a newsletter for parents informing them of topics and strategies to keep their children safe on the Internet. All writing is original and graphics were found on the Internet and using clipart in Microsoft Publisher.

Scope

This project was developed as an informational newsletter for parents regarding the Internet and their child. The writing was developed collaboratively and we used Microsoft Publisher for the layout and design. Topics were selected by each of the four group members and were submitted for addition into the newsletter. The newsletter was constructed using a customized layout that allowed a number of graphical and textual elements to be included. As the articles were submitted, they were placed into the publication based on their content as well as their ability to fit the designated spaces. Team members had been previously been given a word allotment for their articles and were asked to revise if they did not adhere to this constraint. The publication was converted to PDF and submitted for final approval. It has never been formally used or published.

Role

This was a collaborative project consisting of a four person team. For this project, I served as writer, editor and print designer. As a writer, I constructed my article, carefully adhering to design specifications. As the editor, I reviewed the submitted articles and suggested revisions to other team members. As the print designer, I developed the layout, inserted images and designed the overall look and feel of the publication. I converted and submitted it.

Reflection

After an earlier design that left me with revision ideas, I was happy to see that my skills in print design had improved. The process of editing was rather frustrating due to the number of grammatical errors I received from one of the writers and the lack of attention that was paid to the length of articles. The design of the newsletter was actually quite fun, making it all fit and still looking pleasing to the eye was definitely a challenge. Overall, I was pleased with the outcome.