In reflecting back on this process of creating my learning object, I found that I had really kept going back to my notes and watching some of the course videos again to remind myself of the design elements and principles. I was trying to use as many of them as possible in my final learning object, to try and get as much out of and into my final project as I could.
My design problem was trying to identify a way to share knowledge of musical concepts with people from a visual perspective. I was attempting to utilize actual sound as little as possible, even though that would have been a much more effective and engaging presentation. I feel it would have been the easy way out and not a challenge for me. I wanted to find a way to give an understanding of barbershop structure and voicing without actually hearing it. I did end up using a very small audio clip of a pitch up from one of my learning tracks, but that was only for effect on one particular slide and it lasted only a few seconds.
In creating my learning object, I spent most of my time sorting out on a piece of paper, what information I felt was the most important and required minimal wording. What were the basic elements of barbershop singing that one would need to grasp in order to truly have the starting point of understanding. I tried to step back and look at it from an uniformed perspective, but I found that very hard to do. Most of my friends also sing or have been involved in this art form so I had to go outside of my comfortable circle of friends and approached a few acquaintances whom I have worked with in the past to see if they would answer a couple of quick questions for me. I asked them what their current knowledge was of barbershop singing and if they could define a couple of terms (harmony, a cappella and chord balance). Most of them gave semi sufficient answers for harmony and a few were able to identify what a cappella meant, but other than one person who played piano, no one was able to grasp or guess at what chord balance meant. I took their responses and along with the initial draft I had planned out, I redrafted during my curation step, and created an updated version of what I felt my video would end up containing. I did not go into it with a great understanding of what graphical elements they would have available to use, but I did locate the logos for each of the current barbershop singing organizations that are active in North America.
I solved the design problem by ensuring each portion of the video was able to offer additional content that was important, valid and built on the previous slide. By the end of the video, a solid foundation of information should be retained by the learner, enough to say they understand and can explain what four part harmony is and how the barbershop style of harmony is sung, balanced and voiced.
As an assessment of my learning object, I feel the following design elements and principles were successfully included and leveraged at different points in the video. My mediums I utilized were that of videography, typography and illustration and animation.
Design Elements:
Design Principles:
My design problem was trying to identify a way to share knowledge of musical concepts with people from a visual perspective. I was attempting to utilize actual sound as little as possible, even though that would have been a much more effective and engaging presentation. I feel it would have been the easy way out and not a challenge for me. I wanted to find a way to give an understanding of barbershop structure and voicing without actually hearing it. I did end up using a very small audio clip of a pitch up from one of my learning tracks, but that was only for effect on one particular slide and it lasted only a few seconds.
In creating my learning object, I spent most of my time sorting out on a piece of paper, what information I felt was the most important and required minimal wording. What were the basic elements of barbershop singing that one would need to grasp in order to truly have the starting point of understanding. I tried to step back and look at it from an uniformed perspective, but I found that very hard to do. Most of my friends also sing or have been involved in this art form so I had to go outside of my comfortable circle of friends and approached a few acquaintances whom I have worked with in the past to see if they would answer a couple of quick questions for me. I asked them what their current knowledge was of barbershop singing and if they could define a couple of terms (harmony, a cappella and chord balance). Most of them gave semi sufficient answers for harmony and a few were able to identify what a cappella meant, but other than one person who played piano, no one was able to grasp or guess at what chord balance meant. I took their responses and along with the initial draft I had planned out, I redrafted during my curation step, and created an updated version of what I felt my video would end up containing. I did not go into it with a great understanding of what graphical elements they would have available to use, but I did locate the logos for each of the current barbershop singing organizations that are active in North America.
I solved the design problem by ensuring each portion of the video was able to offer additional content that was important, valid and built on the previous slide. By the end of the video, a solid foundation of information should be retained by the learner, enough to say they understand and can explain what four part harmony is and how the barbershop style of harmony is sung, balanced and voiced.
As an assessment of my learning object, I feel the following design elements and principles were successfully included and leveraged at different points in the video. My mediums I utilized were that of videography, typography and illustration and animation.
Design Elements:
- Line - The shape of the text and outlines of different clipart in the video create a sense of structure and form, even though there are no guiding lines or outlines for any of the text
- Colour - the use of colour was predominant not only in the continuity within the video for each voice part, but also to add to the contract of backgrounds near the end of the video
- Shape - numerous shapes were used throughout the video for highlighting call-outs and identifying specific voice parts
- Space - overlap in chorus members
Design Principles:
- Pattern
- Contrast
- Emphasis
- Balance
- Scale
- Harmony