February 14, 2010
Project Report Week Five
I am still in early stages of my project for Arizona State University’s TWC 421 Writing with Technology course. To overview, I am learning to use Adobe InDesign CS4 through the lynda.com Online Training Library so that I can create a guide book about the educational publishing industry. This past week, I completed the first three chapters of my online course called, “InDesign CS4 Essential Training”. I am getting more comfortable with InDesign and I find the tutorials to be amazingly fun and useful. I have never learned a new application so efficiently and in-depth before. I also completed my Test File with InDesign. It is a preliminary title page, which I have added to my blog. It was more challenging than I expected because I am not far enough in the tutorials yet to be able to use all the features I would have liked. This past week was fruitful research-wise because I now have a lead for a programmer at Pearson Education. This employee is willing to answer questions for me. She will be a valuable resource for the project content.
This week I want to continue focusing on my lynda.com tutorials so that I can get past some of the design roadblocks I am encountering. Navigating through the program is going well but designing and altering graphics is not going well. I am mainly frustrated with creating colored shapes and cropping images. I also had difficulties using the color picker on an imported graphic. Something was wrong with the image attributes. The course has not yet covered many of the program design tools so I assume these problem will not last long. Hopefully, this week I can resolve them. This week I need to continue gathering creditable source material from online journals and electronic books from the ASU online library. I also want to open up communication with my industry source. I hope to get some contact information from other publishing companies as well this week. I am disappointed that I did not spend more time on outline development for the guide book so this week I am going to highly prioritize that task.
On the whole, everything is still going well. Keep checking in for additional updates on this exciting project!
Nicolette Taylor
February 6, 2010
Project Report Week Four
I have begun a project for Arizona State University’s TWC 421 Writing with Technology course. To overview, I am learning to use Adobe InDesign CS4 through the lynda.com Online Training Library so that I can create a guide book about the educational publishing industry. This past week, I composed a project proposal and audience analysis. These two objectives really helped me to draw the scope of my project. I now have a clear understanding of my objectives for the next thirteen weeks. Also, I feel proud of my project proposal. It was well received so everything is going swell! I feel I made this beginning assignment both thorough and visually appealing. I did not run into any problems while creating my proposal and so I am very optimistic. I added it to my blog for viewing: Project Proposal and Audience Analysis Feel free to take a peek!
This week I want to really focus on plowing through the lynda.com tutorials so that I can begin creating my book. Right now I have begun the course titled, “InDesign CS4 Essential Training”. I am enjoying the video format for the course. It is easy to follow along and pay attention to the animated instructor. This week I also need to start gathering creditable source material. I will first be looking at publishing company websites and online journals and electronic books from the ASU online library. Finally, this week I wish to begin developing a more thorough outline for the guide book. I want to get a working content skeleton so that I can soon begin adding meat to it and working on the table of contents.
I am happy to report that my project is on track and everything is going well. I truly have no complaints so far. Keep checking in for additional updates on this exciting project!
Nicolette Taylor
January 25, 2010
Ready… Set… Go!
Greetings all!
This is my very first blog. It is going to take some getting used to. I am finally in with the times though! Be patient as I continue adding updates. And lastly, feel free to explore or drop me a line.
Nicolette
Nicolette Kaye Taylor 