Why Create Learning Resources?
Learning is the process of how we experience understand and appreciate the world we live in. Educators, (teachers, parents and carers) who facilitate that process are doing something immeasurably important.
Learning resources can be a simple as sticks and sand. I believe that loose parts and child-led exploration, especially in nature, is crucial to a child’s development. However, as facilitators, it is also our role to inspire and engage children in learning experiences that they may not discover on their own. This could be guiding them through the development of personal and social skills, introducing them to books to broaden their experience or providing a framework for building literacy skills, for example.
What Makes a Quality Resource?
A quality resource is quite simply one that works to facilitate learning. In order to do this, it needs to work on two levels:
- Content
- scaffolds learning, step by step to achieve objectives
- adaptable to suit different needs, abilities, interests, stages of development
- relevant to children’s experience and interest
2. Appearance
- attractive and eye-catching to make in enticing and stimulate interest
- engaging to sustain interest
- designed to draw out and showcase quality results from children – work they are proud to share
Teachers Telling Tales Resources
The aim is to incorporate the philosophy outlined above to create high quality resources that can be used for enjoyable learning at school (or at home). I apply my extensive experience of teaching and developing graphic design skills in order to achieve this. Creating quality resources is time-consuming so by providing ready made ones I hope to relieve some of the pressure from the busy lives of educators.
Methodology
I mainly work in Adobe Illustrator, then transfer text and images to common document formats PDF, Word, Powerpoint etc. for sharing. To ensure that there are no copyright infringements I use images from public domain sites and adapt them or, (as I develop my illustration skills), create my own. Here are some useful sites for free images
- https://pixabay.com/ for photos, illustrations and vector graphics
- https://unsplash.com/ for photos
- http://www.photos-public-domain.com/
For those times when I can’t find the kind of image I’m looking for I use VectorsStock, The range of high quality images here is fantastic. I like how you can save images to curated galleries, follow artists and buy credits for purchasing using Paypal, making the cost manageable. If you would like to check it out or sign up please use this link http://www.vectorstock.com/a/5304186 (I am an affiliate member and may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you).