Click on image to
enlarge screenshot
(will open in new window)

"ExCelerator"

Project

A four-page paper-based newsletter to record summer camp activities.

Context

Produced by eight middle school students using digital photography, Adobe InDesign, and Photoshop over a one month timeframe.

Conditions 

• InDesign was introduced for the first time as a natural extension of the skills learned by many of these middle school students, who had studied photography and Adobe Photoshop the previous summer.
• The camp was limited to gifted students from the county.
• A paper-based camp newsletter was selected as the focal project as no newsletter had ever been produced by students at the school.
• Students were each assigned to report on and photograph two to three summer school courses. The design was a collective project.

Scope 

• Project was successfully completed and distributed to all camp students as a camp souvenir.
• Newspaper was later adopted as a school marketing handout.
• Students would have preferred the faster production turnaround time of an online newspaper.
• To realistically produce a newspaper within these limitations, journalism should be produced by a separate class.

Role

• Introduced Adobe InDesign and reviewed Photoshop skills.
• Project was limited by too little time and too few students to allow them to fully produce the newsletter. They produced a number of less complex projects and I, as teacher, build the interface template.
• Students took turns inputting images, copy, and headlines.