After a long break, we are happy to announce that we have finally resumed our Digital Arts For All (DAFA) sessions!
Before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, we had several DAFA sessions planned out throughout the month of March. We were looking forward to conducting them and interacting with the participants, however, due to the outbreak, circuit breaker was implemented. Even though we were disappointed our workshops had to be cancelled, we seized the chance to further improve our DAFA content so that we can better engage our participants.
Once we entered Phase 2 of reopening Singapore, we were excited to conduct our DAFA sessions again. COVID-19 introduced new norms and online learning was one of them. Our team had to adapt to the new norms as well, and we shifted our DAFA sessions online. It was a new experience for us and we were thankful to have the students from Westwood Secondary School as our first online participants!
Similar to our previous classes, we introduced the 3 core values of DAFA: Be Safe, Be Smart, and Be Kind. Since it was an online class, we introduced more case studies and examples so that the students can better grasp the importance of cyber wellness. We also explored several communication platforms like Padlet and Zoom chat to maintain our interactions with the students.
As for the Digital Arts portion, they tried their hands on GIF creation using Keynote or Powerpoint. As there were limited tools and software the students could use, we taught them how they could create wonderful illustrations and GIFs with the simple shapes found on Keynote or Powerpoint. Despite the little experience they had creating illustrations with shapes, the students were willing to explore and they performed really well.
2 hours flew past quickly and we were grateful for the students who remained proactive and attentive during the entire session. Our first online workshop was a success (thanks to the students) and we look forward to conducting more online classes!