In Bill and the AP Style Manual We trust

OK forgive the hyperbole but Friday’s InDesign segment was life altering for me. I do not have an artistic back ground but just the small changes and short cuts we were shown are going to drastically change the look of my paper. I also discovered that I was making layout of pictures overly complicated, this means that a great deal of time is going to be saved in my classroom.

I liked that the tutorial was guided by the participants. Many of the teachers in my class were like me, working on InDesign without any formal training or professional development in that specific software application. We were able to move through the program without going over the more basic functions, which gave more time for us to discus specific issues we had in our papers. Having a professional teach us how he uses the application and in some instances how to properly use certain tools was truly helpful and will, like most of the training we have received here, will directly affect my students in the classroom.

Another highlight of the day was the lecture on AP style with Jennifer Johnson. I brought my AP manual with me and our time a the Arizona Republic I started the thumb through it and see what a wonderful asset it is. The style manual that is currently in my classroom is much older and does not cover the recent technological explosion. I am very glad that some of the consistency issues my paper has faced are going to be a thing of the past. Also a resource to look at might be Rob Melton’s News Writer’s Handbook http://www.jea.org/curriculum/writing/stylebook.pdf this is a great resource.