How to Plan, Design and Manage Workshops

The workshop was developed from two areas of my personal experimentation and investigation.

The idea was loosely clustered around the idea of gamification and engagement.  The longer players are engaged in the game, the easier it will be to build community. So the idea of creating jigsaws from the artwork we make is attractive.  Not only this, it is easy to transfer the skills used to make jigsaws to creating other products such as real jigsaws, mugs and functional or decorative products, the likes of which you will find on Zazzle.  

Here is the first cluster of ideas for the work shop.  How To Make a Digital Jigsaw Card.  You will see that the workshop had a sound technical basis.  Yet I was not convinced that I was going to be able to get the participants designing their work quickly enough in one session to leave them with enough "take away knowledge".

This is where teachers and workshop designers have to think strategically.  How would I be able to get the participants drawing quickly enough so that they were able to take a way a finished product from the work shop?......By Scaffolding.

The word scaffolding means exactly what it sounds like it means.  It requires the teacher or workshop designer build enough structures around the techniques participants are required to learn so that they can build on small incremental steps, one at a time.  I have achieved this by having three videos arranged so that they step through the process.  

Then I need to 'onboard'.

Onboarding, is a game designers way of easing people into a game so that they are not scared off by the initial level of difficulty.

Onboarding requires that the participant

1. can see the scaffolding so that they feel as safe a child on a bike with trainers wheels
2. is motivated because he or she knows there is an attractive product or experience to be had at the other end of the learning curve 
3. is drawn into the game and becomes 'converted' to it as a loyal fan

To accomplish the trifold feat, I chose to teach the attractive and yet simple technique of Zentangle.  Here is the article I used to introduce the idea at the workshop.  How to Zentangle. 

If you read the article you will find that all of the instruction is contained in the videos embedded into the article. I like Tiffany Lovering's video's because they are accompanied by music to help the students concentrate. 

I was extremely well prepared on the day of testing.  We thought the there would be five participants, so I brought ten sets of pencils with marker pans in zip lock bags, and sets of tracing utensils available. I had a scanner, but as well, two digital cameras in case there was extra need for digitalizing equipment.   The content of the workshop was ready in the form of printable articles and there were speakers so that the relaxing music could be piped into the room.

Everything was ready but it was still an experiment with regards timing and in understanding what the needs of the students would be. 

I had written the books Global Citizens Creative Arts Text and Virtual & Traditional Jigsaws in the Classroom.  

 I had done an enormous amount of research and yet still wasn't quite sure how this would go.   Try a free sampler of the book.

  Because I had only one participant who told us that it was very unclear what the workshop was about, we decided to really work on the advertising and re-run it in June. 2014.

I have decided to change the complexity of the Zentangling task by cutting the pages down and by use thicker felts.  This will speed up the process.  I will also have thicker crayons for younger children, just in case they are there.   If we can cut through the workload, we will arrive at the computing section of the workshop more quickly.  This will gives us time to look at the jigsaws once they are made and to critique them so as to improve the look and feel of the art.

We will then be able to play with other products besides jigsaws. 

I have also decided not to bring a scanner next time and only to use the digital cameras to snap the images blue tacked to the white board. (Time is too precious to take it up scanning)

Having said this - the workshop has let me know what I needed to do to better prepare before making up packages and circulating advertising.   I can now think through various aspects of communication and keep tweaking them until the next time.