Jordan Amerson discusses using graphic design principles to develop interactive study guides for distance education. An interactive study guide is a structured note-taking system that leads learners through concepts and requires active involvement. When designed properly using principles like appropriate font size and type, color, alignment, and capitalization, interactive study guides can enhance teaching and learning. The six principles of design - balance, center of interest, emphasis, unity, contrast, and rhythm - as well as the elements of design such as line, shape, space, texture, value, and color should be applied to create effective visuals and develop interactive study guides.

1. Jordan Amerson

2.  Printed media
 Interactive study guide
 graphic design
 Six principles of design
 Elements of design

3.  Oldest and basic form of communication
 Can enhance teaching, learning, and managing in distance education
 Graphic design principles can be applied to develop study guides that use visuals
for key instructional ideas

4.  Structured note taking system that leads the learner through a series of concepts,
and that requires some active and interactive involvement by the students
 Improves student note taking
 Management tool that directs course activities before, during, and after
instruction
 More organized and more systemically sequenced than other study guides

5.  Identify the objective of the lesson
 Create a detailed outline of topics related to the objective
 Identify key words
 Use geometric shapes to show relationships to assist the learner
 Sequence displays the way they will be discussed
 Develop sub-displays for topics that have more than one visual or word picture
 Produce the interactive study guide using proper graphic design principles

6.  Size – letter size is closely related to legibility
 bold lettering is easier to see and read than is smaller lettering
 Font – sans serif fonts should be used instead of fancy points with serifs The thin
extensions to letters often used in textbooks and printed documents
 Color and contrast – color is often misused in television
 colors should be bold and simple and should not be overdone

7.  Alignment – centering text for the television display is not as effective as aligning
text to left
 justified text seems to be most legible
 Capitalization – the literature on readability is quite clear that uppercase and
lowercase lettering
 all uppercase or all lowercase reads the best

8.  Balance – sense of equilibrium in a visual
 Center of interest – visual focal point of the graphic and should related to its
purpose
 Emphasis- closely related to the center of interest
 Unity – visual holds together to convey its purpose
 Contrast – characteristic of an object that cause it to stand out
 Rhythm – comes from repetition through variety and is used to draw a viewer
through the various objects in a visual

9.  Line – generally considered to be one dimensional.
 Lines portrays direction, present objects, and defines the outer shape of something
 Shape – used to symbolize objects or to show large or small spaces
 Shapes have two dimensions, height and width
 Space – either positive or negative
 The outline of an object in a visual signifies its positive space

10.  Texture – perceived or actual roughness or smoothness of a surface
 Value – degree of lightness or darkness of a surface
 Value is accomplished through shading
 Value shows changes in space
 Color – related to value and is used to visualize of an object realistically or to
differentiate of an object from another object