Digital Desktop Publishing Syllabus
Golden Strip Career Center
Course Syllabus
Susan C. Werner, Instructor
DIGITAL DESKTOP PUBLISHING
COURSE CODE: 5176
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course brings together graphics and text to create professional level documents and publications. Students create, format, illustrate, design, edit/revise, and print publications. Improved productivity of digitally produced newsletters, flyers, brochures, reports, advertising materials, catalogs, and other publications is emphasized.
OBJECTIVE: Given the necessary equipment, supplies, and facilities, the student will be able to successfully complete all of the following core competencies for a course granting one unit of credit.
RECOMMENDED GRADE LEVELS: 10–12
COURSE CREDIT: 1 Carnegie unit
PREREQUISITE: Computer Applications or Integrated Business Applications 1
COMPUTER REQUIREMENT: One computer per student
OTHER APPLICABLE SOFTWARE: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Publisher, and Microsoft Word
RESOURCES: www.mysctextbooks.com
A. SAFETY
1. Review school safety policies and procedures.
2. Review classroom safety rules and procedures.
3. Review safety procedures for using equipment in the classroom.
4. Identify major causes of work-related accidents in office environments.
5. Demonstrate safety skills in an office/work environment.
B. STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
1. Identify the purpose and goals of a Career and Technology Student Organization (CTSO).
2. Explain how CTSOs are integral parts of specific clusters, majors, and/or courses.
3. Explain the benefits and responsibilities of being a member of a CTSO.
4. List leadership opportunities that are available to students through participation in CTSO conferences, competitions, community service, philanthropy, and other activities.
5. Explain how participation in CTSOs can promote lifelong benefits in other professional and civic organizations.
C. TECHNOLOGY KNOWLEDGE
1. Demonstrate proficiency and skills associated with the use of technologies that are common to a specific occupation.
2. Identify proper netiquette when using e-mail, social media, and other technologies for communication purposes.
3. Identify potential abuse and unethical uses of laptops, tablets, computers, and/or networks.
4. Explain the consequences of social, illegal, and unethical uses of technology (e.g., piracy; illegal downloading; licensing infringement; inappropriate uses of software, hardware, and mobile devices in the work environment).
5. Discuss legal issues and the terms of use related to copyright laws, fair use laws, and ethics pertaining to downloading of images, photographs, documents, video, sounds, music, trademarks, and other elements for personal use.
6. Describe ethical and legal practices of safeguarding the confidentiality of business-related information.
7. Describe possible threats to a laptop, tablet, computer, and/or network and methods of avoiding attacks.
D. PERSONAL QUALITIES AND EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
1. Demonstrate punctuality.
2. Demonstrate self-representation.
3. Demonstrate work ethic.
4. Demonstrate respect.
5. Demonstrate time management.
6. Demonstrate integrity.
7. Demonstrate leadership.
8. Demonstrate teamwork and collaboration.
9. Demonstrate conflict resolution.
10. Demonstrate perseverance.
11. Demonstrate commitment.
12. Demonstrate a healthy view of competition.
13. Demonstrate a global perspective.
14. Demonstrate health and fitness.
15. Demonstrate self-direction.
16. Demonstrate lifelong learning.
E. PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE
1. Demonstrate effective speaking and listening skills.
2. Demonstrate effective reading and writing skills.
3. Demonstrate mathematical reasoning.
4. Demonstrate job-specific mathematics skills.
5. Demonstrate critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
6. Demonstrate creativity and resourcefulness.
7. Demonstrate an understanding of business ethics.
8. Demonstrate confidentiality.
9. Demonstrate an understanding of workplace structures, organizations, systems, and climates.
10. Demonstrate diversity awareness.
11. Demonstrate job acquisition and advancement skills.
12. Demonstrate task management skills.
13. Demonstrate customer-service skills.
F. INTRODUCTION TO DESKTOP PUBLISHING
1. Define desktop publishing.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the basic hardware/software components and input/output devices needed for desktop publishing.
G. DESIGN PRINCIPLES
1. Explain the effective uses of color theory.
2. Explain the effective use of Principle of Design.
3. Explain the effective use of Elements of Design.
4. Explain the effective use of Typography of Design.
5. Describe characteristics and uses of basic color models (e.g., RGB, CMYK).
6. Develop an understanding of basic desktop publishing terminology.
7. Understand that the focal point is the visual element that is the center of interest on the page or set of facing pages.
8. Use directional flow to draw the reader’s eyes through the text to particular words or images that the designer wishes to emphasize.
9. Understand how to use white space/negative space.
10. Understand the rule of thirds.
11. Understand how to use balance, contrast, repetition, and proximity to create harmony within a publication.
12. Understand basic text alignment, including left, right, centered, and (full) justified.
13. Understand baseline, x-height, ascender, descender, and drop cap.
14. Recognize the difference between the two major categories of typefaces, including serif and sans serif.
15. Understand that fonts are grouped together in families and given a family name (e.g., Arial, Garamond).
16. Understand that when a style is applied to a font family it becomes a typeface.
17. Utilize a combination of a variety of font weights (thin, normal/regular, bold, semi-bold, heavy, black, etc.), font styles (italic) and font widths (narrow, condensed, wide, extended, etc.).
18. Understand points and picas.
19. Understand and utilize kerning, tracking, and leading.
20. Understand reverse type.
21. Understand how to use tabs and leaders.
22. Develop a basic understanding of the color wheel, including complementary and analogous colors.
23. Understand that colors are used to communicate a mood or a message and that different colors are associated with different meanings.
H. DIGITAL IMAGING
1. Understand the differences between raster/bitmap and vector images.
2. Define various types of graphic file formats.
3. Acquire digital image from multiple sources.
4. Calculate and convert images to desired sizes and resolution.
5. Edit a digital image.
6. Create simple drawings to include shapes, fills, colors, strokes, and lines.
7. Select and group objects.
8. Develop a basic understanding of layering including text wrap and opacity/watermarks.
9. Understand pixels as a unit of measurement for images and how to select high-quality images.
I. CREATING AND DESIGNING DOCUMENTS
1. Demonstrate the effective use of the design process, (i.e., thumbnails, rough drafts, and comprehensive layout).
2. Demonstrate the effective use of graphics (i.e., line art, continuous tone, halftone, halftone screen, cropping, scaling, vector and raster graphics, and resolution).
3. Demonstrate the effective use of typography (i.e., downloadable [soft] fonts, typesetting, points, picas, alignment of text, drop shadows, leading, tracking, and kerning.
4. Proofread, edit, and revise text using standard proofreading symbols.
5. Determine the most appropriate type of desktop publication based upon the purpose, intended audience, life of the publication, cost limits, and time constraints.
6. Design a layout for readability and attractiveness by use of effective white space, column position and spacing, page margins, and graphics placement (boxes, lines, illustrations, images, etc.).
7. Develop a desktop publication including original graphics created using drawing and paint tools.
8. Generate a variety of documents such as a flyer, a bulletin, proposals, reports, a newsletter, a brochure, catalogs, business cards, greeting cards, a letterhead, an advertisement, labels, handouts, and information forms.
9. Incorporate original digital camera image into a desktop publication.
10. Insert and transform photos using cropping, resizing, flipping, rotating, skewing, and shadowing.
11. Understand the importance of preplanning a document, including creating a thumbnail sketch.
12. Create multiple-page documents by inserting and deleting pages and using facing pages.
13. Understand that documents are printed on different types of paper that have different sizes, weights, and finishes.
14. Understand the different types of parallel folds that are used with publications, including z-fold, tri-fold, and half-fold.
J. DEVELOPING A DESKTOP PUBLISHING PORTFOLIO
1. Identify careers in the desktop publishing field.
2. Explain the purpose of portfolios and how to select the pieces to include in the portfolio.
3. Create a resumé to include in the portfolio.
4. Assemble a career portfolio of a variety of documents produced in the course, including a flyer, a bulletin, proposals, reports, a newsletter, a brochure, catalogs, business cards, greeting cards, a letterhead, an advertisement, labels, handouts, and information forms