Reflective Report
I think when the brief went live I had a lot of ideas in my head and at the start of the brief and I tried to think of things that I had liked to do at that KS1 age and what sort of activities I liked best myself. The best activities for me were the simple but effective ones such as word searches, colour by numbers and the hands-on crafting sort of activities. The sort of actives that you could come away from doing it in the classroom to attempting them at home. These were my basic starting points and how maybe some of those ideas could be linked to some of the significant people featured on the list in the brief. At this point I had a handful of names I had shortlisted but wasn't quite sure of my three to select. Then the trip to The National Archives happened and this trip was a key when it came to my selection of the three people. I generally came away with a better understanding of who my choices were and possible activities to do and things to include and not to include due to explicit nature of the information i.e. (Alan Turing's death and Noor Inayat Khan imprisonment) and general things to think about when it came to creating the pages themselves.
So then it came down to who to choose and I finally went with a selection of Alan Turing, Noor Inayat Khan and Captain James Cook. My reasons for selecting these three people was because Alan Turing I knew basic information about him but I wanted to know more about myself as well as try to make others aware of his contributions. Secondly my reasoning for Choosing Noor Inayat Khan was she was one of the figures I over looked initially but from just seeing the documents first hand at the Archives was something else and I felt I needed to showcase her and what she did for an occupation. Finally Captain James Cook because I had never heard of him before when first glancing at the list of individuals also my love for the sea and exploration may have also had apart to play in my decision. Then from there I started to do my research from various sources and tried to compile all that information together so when it came to writing the information in text form for my pages I had a vault of knowledge that I could add and subtract parts of information if they weren't working. I also tried to select a variety of facts from the generic i.e. ( Birthplace and the thing that they're know for to things that are more obscure and people mayn't know about that certain individual ). Then I researched age appropriate sources such as Horrible Histories, Dorling Kindersley books and BBC Bitesize just to see what information they depicted. With all my research and information gathered I felt it was time to start designing roughs.
When it came to making roughs I tried to keep in mind the individual and what activities I could associate with them for example making diary entires of adventures, creating origami ships and designing flags are some of the activities for Captain James Cooks pages. Captain James Cook made diary entries whilst anchored at sea I know this because I saw first hand diary entries at the National Archives. Alan Turing's activities I have included word searches, math problems and code activities because that is what he is known for cracking for cracking the Enigma Code. So deciphering letter and number tasks are ideal. With Turing also being a brilliant mathematician persuaded me to include the math problems that are aimed at the appropriate KS1 age range which I referred to on sites such as BBC Bitesize, MyMaths and I also looked at general KS1 math sheets Problems on the internet to get an idea and understanding on the degree of difficulty I could range my math problems and those references were of great help. My Noor Inayat Khan rough activities consisted of much the same thing really because they both worked in code with one trying to crack it whilst another was sending messages with it. Their was also one activity that I thought would be perfect for Noor Inayat Khan which was a spot the difference task which I thought really captured her profession of being a spy so choosing a task like spot the difference where one image appearance differs from the other was perfect and something I saw when looking at Horrible Histories. However my morals held me back because she was a tremendous lady to do what she did and the way she died I felt like I was being disrespectful.
Furthermore I introduced some colour to my drafts with colours that link well with the individual. However I tried to introduce three pastel colors because I wanted to cater to any dyslexic children that may see any of my pages and with having my text overlaid by one of the pastel colors they would be able to read the information with the rest. However after getting feedback from my tutor she advised me to get rid of the pastel colors behind all of the text and anywhere writing is needed which is a big factor with most of my book because if a teacher wanted to print a page off with the colour behind it they would appear completely black if printed in black and white which is not something I want.
Testing my pages on my cousin who is aged at the high end of the age range of key stage one was a great insight into how aspect of my pages did and didn't work and if there was any major problems which there wasn't with all things considered. I took from it that I needed to be more clear when it came to where to write answers and drawing things. I also adjusted some of the text by giving helpful prompts with the writing task on the Noor Inayat Khan page.
After getting feedback from my user testing and finally feedback from my tutor I started to make the necessary changes to my pages with the feedback I have received in mind to then go onto create the final versions. I started by checking for any spelling errors and typos which was one of the things I needed to address from feedback. Additionally I changed all the text font so that it was all the same so that my pages flow better (Before I had a different font for my text on my Alan Turing pages). My flag activities pages for Captain James Cook were also looking quite dull and needed something extra to give them life which was another thing my tutor feedback picked up on so I added in my drawing of Captain James Cook and they have done just what I wanted them to do and that was make the pages themselves a bit more interesting to look at . My Cover followed the same philosophy with simplicity being key and showing key elements from each person i.e. OBE Medal/Alan Turing, the George Cross Medal/Noor Inayat Khan and the sailing ship at sea for Captain James Cook. I chose to include the pastel colours that I erased from most of the pages because I felt the flat front cover needed just a hint of colour and I thought those would make a good addition. I also included my illustrations of each of the individual figure on the cover because they weren't being used due to the fact that I'm now using actual photographs of the chosen three because I needed to use actual photographs of the people instead of drawings.
Overall with all things considered I feel I have created an E-book for a KS1 audience that I'm very pleased with and falls into the category of the high end of the age range because of some of the difficult activities. Furthermore I have tried to vary my activities in the sense of the length it would take for a child to complete them which is something the brief indicated and something that came up at The National Archive trip. Finally I also tried to keep my book simple and yet effective and additionally teacher friendly when it came to a scenario of printing pages off.
By Ashley Poyner
