research design laboratory

Educational Toolkits: Teachers Photocopy

We are in the midst of designing an important educational toolkit including activities, media examples, evaluations guides, etc. The main purpose of this toolkit is to serve high school teachers by providing them with tools to discuss stories of people displaced by war, genocide and other human rights violations, now living in Montréal.

Designing this toolkit has proven to be challenging (and we like challenges) on a few fronts. First off, as a consideration of the project's limited budget, we have chosen to use only two colours (black and blue) for the layout (instead of four). This has been especially interesting for working out the style of the images, opting for a largely abstract and shadow intensive aesthetic. It works. Secondly, we have accounted for the use of the document: teachers need to photocopy documents to make copies for their students. This has meant all text is highly legible both on screen and on print, and especially with low resolution copies. However, the kit has to also be fully functional online, and as such, we decided on a standard format, 11 x 8.5 inches landscape, which allows for easy photocopying as well as the best format for reading on a computer screen. Hyperlinks are also clickable in the PDF version online.

The total kit will consist of more than 200 pages and is due out early 2012. We will report back will full details of the launch.

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