Introducing Yourself

Students, look for the assignment on Google Classroom.

Teachers, see my blog post about this assignment here.

Affinity Designer Tutorials

Start Here…

  1. Affinity Designer 1.5 Overview
  2. Affinity Designer Tutorial – Top 10 Things Beginners Want to Know (a great overview video)
  3. The A to Z of Affinity Designer (“This A to Z list breaks down all the tools and panels, including some useful functions and features. It includes links to Affinity’s official short video tips and descriptions of what each tool can do to help you become acquainted with this program.”)

Tutorials

This is a work in progress…

  1. Affinity Designer Tutorial: The Basics (overview video) (difficulty: 0)
  2. Basic Eyes (very basic) (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  3. Modern Logo (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  4. 3D Cube (very basic) (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  5. Beautiful Floral Design (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  6. How To Make Reflections (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  7. Ketchup for Blood Book Cover (blog w/ video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  8. Cute Ice Cream (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  9. Shopping Logo (video tutorial) (difficulty: 1)
  10. Gear Head Logo (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  11. Easy Flat Design Character with Shading (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  12. Artistic Text (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  13. Metal Text (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  14. Dog Sketch Tracing | Part 2 (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  15. Glossy Sphere (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  16. Flat Clock Design (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  17. iPhone Setting Icon Logo (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  18. Fire Text Effect (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  19. Cute Cactus (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  20. Wood Text with Reflection and Shadow (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  21. Pumpkin Carriage (text tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  22. Flat Birthday Cake (text tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  23. Making Galaxy (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  24. Lighthouse (text tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  25. Water Drops (video tutorial) (difficulty: 2)
  26. Water Dispersion Effect (video tutorial) (difficulty: 3)
  27. Metal Triangle (video tutorial) (difficulty: 3)
    Note: for this assignment make sure all corners are snapped together nicely. See me if you’re unsure how to do this.
  28. Let’s make BB8 (video tutorial) (difficulty: 3)
  29. Creamsicle Vector Illustration (video tutorial) (difficulty: 3)
  30. Retro Tutorial (video tutorial) (difficulty: 3-4)
  31. Festive Christmas Fireplace (video tutorial) (difficulty: 3-4)
  32. Frankentoon PDF (text tutorial – see me) (difficulty: 4)
  33. Captain America Shield (video tutorial) (difficulty: 4)
  34. Drawing a Van (video tutorial) (difficulty: 5)
  35. Cute Rooster (text tutorial) (difficulty: 5)
  36. Python Trace (video tutorial) (difficulty: 5) (image can be downloaded from here)

When submitting your files, please prepend the level number to the beginning of the filename. As an example, “Basic eyes.afdesign” would become “1_Basic eyes.afdesign”.

New Tutorials (need to determine levels)

  1. None at this time…

Note: There are many additional AD tutorials at tutsplus.com and frankentoon.com.

BTT1O

For the BTT1O students, you must do a minimum of 8 tutorials, with no more than one “level 1” tutorial. The two that are mandatory are:

  1. Python Trace
  2. Cute Rooster

TGJ2O/TGJ3M

For the TGJ2O and TGJ3M students, you must do all the level 1 tutorials, a minimum of 3 level 2’s, and a minimum of 2 level 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s.

For the TGJ2O and TGJ3M students, you must also find, complete, and recommend one addition tutorial for inclusion on this list. Please submit the name of the tutorial and the URL via the class comments in Classroom. Be sure no one has already submitted the tutorial you are recommending.

Just for Fun

Here are some extra Designer resources you might like. They are not tutorials but are still quite inspirational.

Posted on

AML EULAs in Plain English

I recently had the pleasure of being in the audience for a presentation from Carol Arcus, Vice-President, The Association for Media Literacy (AML).

AML has many amazing resources for teachers at both their website and their YouTube channel.

One of the highlights for me was their “EULA Project”, where they have taken many social media end-user licence agreements and converted them to plain English posters that can be displayed in your classroom for your students, all for free.

Here’s an example, posted in low-res only (see the link below for full-sized PDFs):

Snapchat EULA
Snapchat EULA in Plain English

To see AML’s EULA Project in its entirety, visit http://www.aml.ca/i-agree/ where you can download PDF versions of each EULA poster.

(Also see http://www.aml.ca/agency-and-privacy/ for additional information about this project.)

Archiving Your Google Data

I always encourage students to use the personal Google account for school work so they still “own” the data after they leave high school.

But what if they haven’t, and they’re above to move on to a postsecondary school or the workplace?

There are basically two options:

  1. Move your data to your personal account
  2. Download your data

To move your data to a new account, just visit https://takeout.google.com/transfer and enter the relevant information. Just be sure you have enough disk quota in your personal account or you may run into trouble.

To download your data, visit https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout and select the data you want to download. Note that this can take a long time, depending on how much data you have in your Google account.

 

Compare Security Software

This is part 4 of the BTT summative portfolio. The requirements have been adapted from  material provided by DSBN’s Business Secondary Learning Community (SLC).

Requirements

Create a spreadsheet to compare three (3) types of security software.

Options may include, but are not limited to McAfee, Norton, Avast, Kaspersky, or NOD32. Be sure there is at least one “free” option in your comparisons.

You may use Excel or Google Sheets for this assignment.

Once you have researched your three (3) choices, list the features in a suitable format in the spreadsheet so the features can easily be compared.

Be sure you list at least six (6) features. Be sure the price of each is also listed.

Be sure the spreadsheet is aesthetically pleasing.

Submit to the appropriate hand-in folder. If using Google Sheets, export as an Excel document.

Expectations covered

  • Demonstrate and understanding of legal, social and ethical issues relating to information and communication technology
  • Analyze privacy and security issues relating to information and communication technology

Analyse Competitors

This is part 3 of the BTT summative portfolio. The requirements have been adapted from  material provided by DSBN’s Business Secondary Learning Community (SLC).

Requirements

Create a spreadsheet to analyze three competing products (e.g., three phones or three headphones or…).

Compare features (3-4 only), size, and price.

Ensure the spreadsheet is aesthetically pleasing , with appropriate headings, justification, etc.

You may use Excel or Google Sheets for this assignment.

Expectations covered

  • Use spreadsheet software to perform a variety of tasks
  • Manage electronic files and folders

Compare Websites

This is part 2 of the BTT summative portfolio. The requirements have been adapted from  material provided by DSBN’s Business Secondary Learning Community (SLC).

Requirements

Using either Word or Google Docs, complete the following requirements for two (2) websites you used to find your technology device:

  1. Describe the homepage (come up with your own relevant criteria)
  2. Investigate two (2) of the toolbar links and describe what you find using five (5) bullet points for each.
  3. Which website do you think is more effective? (Consider simplicity, ease of navigation, consistency, structure/navigation and/or color schemes.) Explain.

Be sure your document is neatly formatted. Use headings, tables, and lists, where appropriate.

Submit to the appropriate hand-in folder. If using Google Docs, export as a Word document.

Expectations covered

  • Demonstrates an understanding of the uses and design of effective websites

Research a technology device

This is part 1 of the BTT summative portfolio. The requirements have been adapted from  material provided by DSBN’s Business Secondary Learning Community (SLC).

Requirements

Research a device by visiting a website for a store that sells electronic devices such as computers, handheld devices, etc.

Examples of online stores may include bestbuy.ca, walmart.ca, dell.ca, apple.ca or staples.ca.

Find a device that you would like to purchase. Using a 2-column table in a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel), list:

  • the name,
  • price,
  • features of this device, and
  • working URL (link) to your source.

Put each of the above into their own rows in the table.

Format the document neatly, using a list, where applicable (like for the features), and include a proper heading as the title.

Expectations Covered

  • Analyze options for accessing the internet
  • Apply effective techniques when conducting electronic research
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the terminology associated with  information and communication technology