Digital Communications 11

Students are expected to be able to do the following:

Applied Design

Understanding context

  • Conduct user-centred research to understand design opportunities and barriers

Defining

  • Establish a point of view for a chosen design opportunity
  • Identify potential users, intended impact, and possible unintended negative consequences
  • Make inferences about premises and constraints that define the design space

Ideating

  • Identify gaps to explore a design space
  • Generate ideas and add to others’ ideas to create possibilities, and prioritize them for prototyping
  • Critically analyze how competing social, ethical, and community considerations may impact design
  • Work with users throughout the design process

Prototyping

  • Identify and apply sources of inspiration and information
  • Choose an appropriate form, scale, and level of detail for prototyping, and plan procedures for prototyping multiple ideas
  • Analyze the design for the life cycle and evaluate its impacts
  • Construct prototypes, making changes to tools, materials, and procedures as needed
  • Record iterations of prototyping

Testing

  • Identify feedback most needed and possible sources of feedback
  • Develop an appropriate test of the prototype
  • Collect feedback to critically evaluate design and make changes to product design or processes
  • Iterate the prototype or abandon the design idea

Making

  • Identify appropriate tools, technologies, materials, processes, and time needed for production
  • Use project management processes when working individually or collaboratively to coordinate production

Sharing

  • Share progress while creating to increase opportunities for feedback
  • Decide on how and with whom to share or promote their product, creativity, and, if applicable, intellectual property
  • Consider how others might build upon the design concept
  • Critically reflect on their design thinking and processes, and identify new design goals
  • Assess ability to work effectively both as individuals and collaboratively while implementing project management processes

MediaSmarts Resources

Content

Students are expected to know the following:

  • design opportunities
  • design cycle
  • digital tools to communicate and solicit information
  • impacts of social media in global communications
  • impacts on language use of online technology
  • issues in digital communication
  • digital communication risks
  • ethics and legalities in digital communication, including
    • ethics of cultural appropriation
    • influences of digital marketing in online content creation and curation
    • changes in journalism and reporting
  • persuasive writing for the web
  • critical evaluation of online resources
  • sociological impacts of digital communication tools
  • technology to support collaboration and interaction with others
  • strategies for developing a digital dossier
  • career opportunities in digital communications
  • appropriate use of technology, including digital citizenship, etiquette, and literacy

MediaSmarts Resources