Print[ed], Covid19, and PLC's

Print[ED], COVID-19, and PLCs

First of all, please accept our wishes for the well being of you, your family, and your students. We at Print[ED] are available to help in any way we can. Whether it is assistance with accreditation or making resources available to improve the content you deliver to your students, support is just a phone call/email/or text message away.

We can't begin to imagine the effect that COVID-19 is having on Print[ED] instructors and students. Leaving school abruptly, without a plan to deliver instruction to students has to be causing stress. Some school systems say students might be able to return to school in a few weeks. Others have closed schools for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, there is no definite end in sight.

So what does an instructor do? The first thing that should ease your mind is the fact that your Print[ED] accreditation makes you a member of the largest Professional Learning Community (PLC) for Graphic Communications. There are over 100 of our programs in the United States with instructors like you who use the competencies as a basis for their curriculum. Print[ED] provides the framework to enable instructors to collaborate. We want to be the spark that ignites a fire in instructors to continuously improve their program for the benefit of the students that they serve.

In this newsletter, we have a great offer from Goodheart-Wilcox to help instructors provide relevant content to students who are home during the COVID-19 crisis. We also have an article that explains how to use electronic "skeletons" to help you go digital with your accreditation.

As always, we are available to answer any questions you may have about Print[ED].

Goodheart-Wilcox Free Remote Learning Resources

G-W is offering free 90-day digital access to educators for the textbook:

Graphic Communications: Digital Design and Print Essentials, 6th Edition

By: Z. A. Prust and Peggy B. Deal.

This offer covers all online instructor resources, including access to the online textbook, workbook, answer keys, lesson plans, presentations for PowerPoint®, and exam question pools in various formats, including Blackboard Learn 9.x, IMS QTI 1.1+, Moodle XML, and WebCT CE 6/Vista 4. The full ExamView® Assessment Suite Software with question banks are also included. Students will have access to the online textbook and workbook.

Use this link to find your G-W Educational Consultant, then contact them and tell them what you need. Requests will take between 3 and 5 business days to fulfill. These resources provide an out of the box solution to get students through the end of the year and ready for their Print[ED] assessments.

Using Electronic Skeletons to Organize Files Digitally

Ask a Print[ED] instructor what aspect of accreditation annoys them the most; the accreditation binders have to be near if not at the top of the list. You have to admit, though, a complete set of new Print[ED] accreditation binders are pretty impressive. So impressive that you can hear the murmur of visitors as they pass by the Print[ED] shrine whispering to each other, "Those binders are impressive; they must have taken a lot of work!". They did take a lot of work, and a piece of every Print[ED] instructor is embedded in those binders, forever.

The binders are suitable for achieving accreditation, but beyond that, how useful are they? As it turns out, they aren't very helpful during the regular day-to-day operations in the classroom.

Print[ED] is supposed to be a mechanism of continuous improvement. Content should be malleable to adapt to the ever-changing classroom. The most useful content is organized (by competency), accessible & searchable (saved digitally), and shareable (presented in a format that everyone can use). Professional Learning Communities that encourage the sharing of content meeting these criteria allow community members to get content they need and share content with those that need it.

A content skeleton is simply a group of folders stored on digital media, organized by and named after each competency. The skeleton shown below is for Introduction to Graphic Communications. Note that the folders are organized first by skill area, then by major section, then by minor section, and finally by competency. In the competency folder are sub-folders for Activities, Lesson Plans, and Resources.

The advantages of the skeleton structure include ease of search, identification of competencies lacking content, and fast file preview. Most importantly, during self and final evaluation evaluators can verify digital content quickly using them. Skeletons can also be checked remotely—no more shipping of binders! They are easily backed up, shared, and accessed in the cloud on any device that supports Google Drive that you use.

Currently, skeletons are available for Introduction to Graphic Communications, Graphic Design, and Digital File Prep & Output. Skeletons for Offset Press Operation & Binding and Finishing, Screen Printing, and Digital Production Printing are forthcoming.

If you are an accredited or applicant Print[ED] program you should have received instructions on how to join in this latest newsletter. Questions? Feel free to email us!

If you are not a member and would like to become accredited and gain access to all this and more click here!

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