As someone who learned desktop publishing on PageMaker in the late 90s, I've always been a little intimidated by InDesign. I was a whiz at PageMaker (after using it for 6 years, one would hope that I knew what I was doing), and I imparted much of my knowledge on my students. We were really able to tap into our collective creativity and create pages that looked professional, but still had personality. Our layout and design was always something that our readers commented on. And then... my prayers were answered.
When the school year started, I discussed upgrading our technology with the principal. I explained that I felt we were doing our kids a disservice by forcing them to learn skills on antiquated technology that NO ONE uses anymore; they weren't going to be ready for a competitive workplace. In early December, five brand new Dells showed up in my classroom. We were thrilled! The only problem? They had InDesign... and none of us knew how to use it. We finished out our last issue of the Fall semester in PageMaker on our clunky old computers, and vowed to tackle InDesign over the break and figure it out.
The learning curve was HUGE. There were things that I knew how to do, quickly and easily in PageMaker, but I couldn't find the options in InDesign. I felt like simple tasks were veiled behind command keys and tricky mazes of option menus. It frustrated me to no end. There was so much that I KNEW we knew how to do, we just couldn't figure out how to do it in this new program. But we got the basics down. We were frustrated at times, but we still put out a decent product.
And then Friday's session came along and changed my world! All of those silly, pesky questions that had been driving me insane were answered! Menus were explained, tools unlocked and my head has stopped spinning! Also knowing that I can take things from CS4 (which I have on my personal computer) and make them work in CS3 (which the school has) is invaluable. That simple element is saving me from being chained to my desk at school. Not that I WANT to take anymore work home than I already do, but knowing that I CAN is a relief. Thank you for what I consider to be the most valuable session for my sanity thus far!
Jessica Young
Orange Glen High School
Escondido, Calif.
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I also took a lot away from the InDesign session on Friday. We have been using InDesign for two years now, and there is still so much to learn - especially in regards to shortcuts - which Bill Pliske, News Design Director for the AZ Republic, shared abundantly with us.
ReplyDeleteStudents of course have led the way to new design and exploring innovative features on InDesign mainly due to their own trial and error process, which seems to be the best way to learn how to use InDesign.
What I am wondering is do many of you do direct instruction with In Design, or do you have students tutor each other? What is the best practice for teaching InDesign now that we know how to use it?
As a side note - Becky Gemmel shared a great resource as well: www.jsprinting.com - they have a number of tutorials for most of what we covered yesterday. She makes packets of these for her students - a great idea.
Andrea Krueger
Centennial High School
Circle Pines, Minnesota
I really enjoyed this presenation eventhough we are moving our print production to purely online. It helped develop my eye for sense of balance and truly appreciate the work, time, and effort it takes to produce quality work.
ReplyDeleteEric Gutierrez
Cerritos, Calif.
The worst thing about InDesign, for a beginner, is also its strength. There are just so many things you can do with the program. Masses of buttons, heaps of options, stare you down to the point the mind just shuts off like 9th grade math class.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky Alan went through each step 3 times. This allowed me to take notes and also follow the process. As with most things, the more time you spend on the program, you learn a lot of things are superfluous. All told there are probably only 10 buttons you NEED to hit to make a decent layout. This is a comfort.
Adam Haller
Northwestern High School
Baltimore, Md
The hours saved due to this two-hour session on InDesign will be incredible. The short cuts, the libraries, the styles, the drop caps! This was so useful for us as teachers to take back and help our kids do things easier.
ReplyDeleteInDesign should also come with the tagline "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" which hits on Adam's comment that there is so much you can do with the program, but it doesn't always mean you should do it! Some of the page designs we saw are a result of being able to use any color and reverse type, or make shapes, or any other wackiness you can do.
Jeff Fencl
Del Norte High School
Albuquerque, N.M.