Workshop on Poster Designing

Abstarct:
8th August 2007 - Today we had a special guest who carry out a simple workshop on creating a poster. We were to work in our own group to come up with a poster and need to be presented. Pn. Nazirah also introduce some tips in creating a good poster. The theme is on Independence Day. One limitation in this workshop is that we are allowed to utilized the pictures given only. The end product was good. All groups came up with attractive and meaningful poster.

8 August 2007 – Today a special session on creating a poster took place at MK2.

“Oh Gosh! Surprise! What surprise is awaiting there?” (stepping into the Education Tower @ Menara Pendidikan)

We have been informed in advance via e-mail that there will be a surprise for today’s lesson. Actually, I have been looking forward for today’s lesson as I thought we will be taught on how to use the Interactive White Board (IWB) and the Smart Board tools. For the past 5 weeks, I have been staring at the IWB which stands firmly at MK2. Hmm….my guessing was wrong. Nevertheless, there was something interesting stored for us. We are to undergo a session on creating a poster conducted by this young lady named Ms. Nazirah. This activity is called Designing for Interaction and students’ Collaboration (DISC).

Prior to the poster designing session, we had our cute, Ms. Chin starting off the class by giving a brief lecture on ‘Konsep Pembestarian Sekolah’. It is all about the government’s initiatives to achieve the aim and vision of education in Malaysia. Due to time constraint, Ms Chin had to rush through the lecture. Fortunately, we have technology as we can retrieve the slides and notes from the following websites. (Thank you, Ms. Chin for providing us with this information)
- http://www.smkchanglun.net/bestari
- http://www.moe.edu.my/tvp

Back to the core event of the day:

DISC is actually designed to be carried out with Malaysian primary pupils of 10 to 12 years old, in conjunction with Malaysia’s 50th independence celebration. This activity involves designing A4 sized posters using Microsoft PowerPoint. This session was carried out with us to experiment it before being implemented with the children’s.

We were given 45 minutes to complete this task. After that, each group has to present their poster to the rest. All the groups came up with fantastic posters but some of us have overlooked at simple things like font size and colour. There is still room for improvement. After all this is the first ever experience designing poster using Power Point Software for most of us.

Having gone through this session, we are required to answer for the following questions.

Here it goes…..

Did you face any problem during the session? Why?
I personally did not face any major problem during the session. It was quite smooth that I could sail through it. However, I feel that the activity restrict one from thinking out of the box. This is because, we are to design the poster using the limited pictures provided only. I understand, when carried out with young children, it is aimed to guide them. But it is like over guiding them until restricts their creativity. Besides that, my group had a tough time to select a picture to be included in the poster. In my humble opinion, everyone has their own definition for independence (kemerdekaan). Thus, when one is asked to select a picture out of the few options, one might hesitate because the meaning of the pictures may differ from theirs. Providing a collection of specific pictures put them at stake to ignore their own perception.

What do you think of the instruction?
The role of the instructions was the most significant one in this session. The instruction given was comprehensible and clear. It was straight to the point and not confusing to me. Ms Nazirah tried very hard to convey her message using simple terminologies. She realizes that not all of us are used to this technological terms, hence she adapt to our needs. I would also say she was being aware who her audiences were. She also gave some examples to make it clearer. For instance, she displayed the sample instruction on the smart board to make it clearer to us while explaining.

What improvements can you suggest?
Perhaps, more pictures can be provided. This will allow them to think of various themes instead of restricting the title and their thought to the picture. Searching pictures from the internet would be another idea.

How would you carry out this design session with primary level pupils?

I would introduce, to them a few samples of posters. Once they have a clear idea what is a poster, I will proceed with the session by teaching various method to design poster like using Paint and so on. Then, I will teach them how to create posters using PowerPoint software. Prior to that, I will explain clearly what is to be done and how is to be done?I will also demonstrate while introducing. After that, I will ask them to work in groups of 3 to design a poster on their own with the theme, Malaysiaku Gemilang given. Once pupils start working on oit, I will go around facilitating them

Here I have uploaded the poster designed by my group.

You are welcomed to comment on my group's poster. Thank you.