Class 2

Prepare a “rough draft” of the expository paper. This should be a 2-3 page, single-space paper about a topic which will become the basis or an introduction to the learning unit within which the later power point presentation and Webquest will be part of. Please save any graphics you wish to have included and know which websites you need to visit to download images from the Web.

....more to follow

Have a great weekend!

See you on Thursday evening or Friday morning.

Eric

Hic nos vado...

Thank you so much for being such a great group. I had a great time with you guys. You were punctual, receptive, and in possession of a good sense of humor. I could also tell that you all genuinely like each other.

Please take a look at this 6 minute video which will help you with your word document and text wrapping graphics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmVwXKEUVI

It's comprehensive and very well done. Please let me know how you found it with a brief comment below.

Important! If we are going to use TappedIn for our makeup class, it's essential that each of you can communicate with the rest of us via the chat window. Please login to TI at the computer you will be using during that class to make sure that you have chat capabilities. Java has to be installed and there will be a troubleshooting FAC on site if you need it. When you comment about the Youtube video, just add whether you can chat or not while you are at TI.

Please plan to email me your drafts as attachments before Monday morning so that I can look them over before class. Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

Eric

Although all of the above is related to the second (this afternoon) class, what follows is what we'll try to accomplish in class.

***If you forgot to take a dry run using the chat window in TI last week, or you tried with no luck, please make yourself known to me at some point during today's class. If our April makeup class is going to run without a hitch (I know, I know, you're thinking about that man Murphy who always seems to show up unwanted) or as close to it as possible, we'll need to eliminate to all the obvious problems.

I read all your drafts and they prove my contention (I spoke of during the first class) that I always gain more from the teachers I work with than they do from me. They all contain wonderful ideas. There were a couple missing, which is probably my fault. So if you didn't receive a recognition email from me today, please let me know when we're in our work phase and I'm coming around to assist you.

A large portion of today's class will be set aside to finalize your papers. Please use me to help you with any formatting issues you might have as well as the inclusion of graphics. As I told you last week, I enjoy working with teachers so please do not be reluctant to ask for help with your work.

I promised you that we would spend some time formatting word processing files (tabs and indents) and we shall. I have 9 or 10 files I'd like to show you and have you go through. They are designed to take you quickly through some formatting concepts that I would almost bet you hadn't seen before. When we're finished with them, you may not be Word certified experts, but you'll be equipped to make your documents a lot more attractive and, more importantly, easier to read.

I'll also use a Powerpoint (which you'll all be using) presentation to tie in some desktop publishing design concepts such as font selection, text reduction to bullet points, punctuation, and online aesthetics. We'll use Powerpoint to cover some of basic document styles and design.

These are merely Powerpoint FYIs

Microsoft Developing an Interactive Story with Powerpoint

http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/how-to/Pages/interactive-story.aspx

University of Minnesota Using Powerpoint to Create Educational Games

http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/powerpoint/games/

Educational Virtual Museums Developed using Powerpoint

http://christykeeler.com/EducationalVirtualMuseums.html

Powerpoint Dos and Don't s

http://www.hrsonline.org/Education/WomensLeadership/ProfGrowth/EffectivePres/PPT/DoDont/

Absolute Basic Powerpoint Tutorial 1 (part of a series)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhDZ7yjM3w

Storing your resources:

I also want to talk about collecting resources such as graphics and their formats such as png and jpg, etc. Where they should be stored and how they should be named.

Graphics should all be stored in one folder.

Graphics should b renamed only if necessary i.e., 230986wsk.jpg is not very user friendly and since its name reveals nothing about what it represents, it could be renamed textbook.jpg or baseball.jpg keeping all the letters lower case and including no spaces or special characters except a dot or an underscore.

Once in situ, they should not be moved which could break any link to them.

If we keep all your related files in one folder, should anything happen to your project such as having trouble locating it, you will able to reconstruct it and avoid starting from scratch.

More to follow...maybe