Similarly, we had greater visibility into the creative spirals-moving between making and thinking-that students engage in, facilitating better conversations and critique. With the shift to remote learning, many students actually found it easier to creatively express themselves, organize project work across cycles of divergence and convergence, and collaborate with others. In conjunction with Zoom calls, we succeeded in recreating and in some ways significantly improving on the in-person class environment. We decided to use Milanote as it offered an easy-to-use medium for quickly developing and organizing ideas visually.ДЄs we transitioned our courses online, we asked students to use Milanote as their primary medium for organizing project work, developing ideas, and collaborating with peers. Consequently, we looked into alternative tools used to organize creative work. Design tools (e.g., Figma) supported many of our goals, but have steep barriers to entry.

While we could have repurposed conventional tools (word processing or presentation software) for organizing creative work, these tools tend to be too linear for open-ended projects. While video calls enabled us to continue coaching students and facilitating our classes, we needed a central space where students could collaborate, prototype, organize research, and develop ideas. The prospect of bringing these interactions online was daunting. We could see what students worked on and how they worked, allowing us to coach students on content and process. We circulated in the classroom, observing and engaging with students as they pursued open-ended projects in response to prompts and guidelines. They would look at each otherвЂ™s laptops, share sketches, discuss ideas on whiteboards, and reflect on physical and digital prototypes. In both courses, students moved fluidly between collaborative and individual work. In another, graduate and undergraduate students design apps and products. In one course, middle school students design robots. Anything over about 1.5pt puts the letters so far apart itвЂ™s hard for the eye to see them as a word instead of individual letters.Before Covid-19, our courses relied intensively on in-person interactions. The text below has been set to Condensed, 1pt, and you can see that anything closer than that would start to become unreadable. Our example using a 10pt spacing is extreme, but it gives you a good example of how character spacing can affect your text.Д«y contrast, you would need to use much smaller numbers to condense the text, mostly fractions of a point.

Choose a small example before going into the Font | Advanced dialog because larger selections canвЂ™t fit in the preview box.Д¬lick OK, and the spacing of your selected text will change.

a higher number for Condensed moves them closer together.ДonвЂ™t worry about that too much though, as the preview at the bottom of the dialog will show you what difference your changes are making.

increasing the number for Expanded puts the letters further apart,.This can be a little confusing, as the spinner move s in opposite directions depending on whether you have selected Expanded or Condensed. Then in theВ ByВ section, use the spinner or enter a value for how much you want to expand or condense by. On the Advanced tab, go to the Spacing dropdown and select Expanded or Condensed, depending on whether you want the letters further apart or closer together. G o to Home | Font and click the Font dialog launcher.To change the spacing between characters in Word, select the text you want to change, and either: Or compress text so more fits into limited space. ItвЂ™s a handy trick for headings, it makes them look bigger without increasing the font size. Character Spacing | Spacing lets you stretch or compress text. Deep in the bowels of WordвЂ™s setting is a way to increase the spacing between letters.

Online workspaces