Project #5
Using Special Features of MS Word to Enliven Your Instruction

Home


About Me

Projects

Reading Assignments

Resume

Teacher Education Links

Resources

SUNY Cortland

EDU 314

Multimedia Portfoli



"Education's responsibility is to replace an empty mind with an open one."-Malcolm Forbes


   
Annotation of Project #5
    For this project, we learned how to use Microsoft Word to make three different products useful for our future teaching.  For this project, we studied the links of resources provided on the EDU 314 calendar to learn how to do these skills.  Also, we listened to tutorials to help us learn, including some by Shufang's son, Michael.  These helped me learn these features easily and quickly because I watched him creating these products while talking us through it at the same time.  I never knew how many products you can make simply with Microsoft Word.  I plan to use some, if not all of these products in my future teaching.
    
Product #1 Overview: Word Acroustic
    For product #1, the Word Acroustic, in which we saw a tutorial on, is when you write your first name horizontally, and then use horizontal words beginning with each letter in your name that describe you.  You use WordArt to make it have different colors and styles.  This was fun to think of these words, but difficult to place them where I wanted to.  After awhile of trying the features, I successful was able to make this look presentable. This could be a nice introduction lesson when first beginning a new school year, so that students can creatively describe themselves to introduce themselves to new people.

Link to Product #1 Word Acroustic

Product #2 Overview: Educational Handout with a Border
     The next product we did was to create an education handout with border, shading or fill effect.  I chose to make a handout for an Open House I could have in my class.  I chose the border by going to "Format" in the tool bar, then chose "Borders and Shading". Once there, I clicked on the "Page Border" option and played with these options until I found something I liked. I chose red apples, as it reminded me of school.  I also googled a photograph of crayons, and put it in the upper right corner of my handout, as a heading.  Then I wrote it, as if I was a Kindergarten teacher speaking to my students' parents/guardians.  I think I will use this a lot in the future, as I will use it to communicate with parents, while looking professional.

Link to Product #2 Creating Educational Handouts with Border, Shading or Fill Effect

Product #3 Overview: Trading Cards
     The last product I made was trading cards, which are similar to flash cards.  For this, you create a page full of tables with one row and two columns each.  Then you can choose a theme and the age level you are trying to make them for.  Sticking with Kindergarten, I googled pictures that would go with "ABC cards".  I wanted to find pictures that were clear, about the same size, and easy to distinguish what they are (for example, a child might call a picture of a dolphin, a "shark" or a "fish", therefore defeating the purpose of matching it to the correct beginning sound of the word.  I chose an apple, a bike, a car, a drum and an elephant.  From there, I copied and pasted one of these pictures in the left box of each table.  Then, I typed the name of them in the right side. These trading cards will be nice to have in my classroom, at any age level.  Although I wouldn't use them much for direct teaching methods, I would put them in a "center" or on a book shelf, so students could choose this material, for fun perhaps, and thus will learn as well.

Link to Product #3 Creating Trading Cards