MS Office Project Ideas???

[laney_h]

Hello,

I teach a number of computer classes to 7th - 12th graders, one of which is a foundational course called "Computer Literacy" which I am currently working on developing the curriculum for. The class will teach computer basics (hardware & software etc.), Netiquette, keyboarding skills (using Mavis Beacon) and Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

After a thorough hands-on--going over every element of the Microsoft Office software, I want to give them a project to do. I would like the projects in Word and Excel to be connected to one-another so that, by the end of the third quarter they have essentially completed one large project and it now can be presented in Powerpoint as a final project for the year. Does anyone have any ideas or previous projects/curricula that relate to what I am doing?

Thank you for any suggestions!!

[annettemcd]

I have tought some lesson on computer skills to people from first graders to senior citizens. Some of the skills which could be incorporated into a project would include learning how to use programs like Word to save time and to format documents appropriately. I still think that teaching keystrokes is very worthwhile. Teach students all of the common ones like: Save, Print, Cut (X), Copy, Paste (V), Undo (Z), Bold, Italics, etc. It helps them in that their hands stay on the keyboard, not constantly moving over to the mouse and back, so that they stay on the home keys and do not lose speed. It also helps if they get in the habit of regularly saving and knowing that a single error can be undone. and the Z keys at the same time that they say, "Oops!"]

I highly recommend books written by Robin Williams (a woman, not the actor): [I]The Non-designer's Design Book, The Mac is not a Typewriter, or The PC is not a Typewriter. Using these books, your students could gain skills in desktop publishing and then you could make them available as a school-wide resource for producing posters, flyers, brochures, programs, and newsletters. (Teachers and staff could give you the information and the students as groups or individually could produce the documents or even have more than one created and then critique them as a class. How readable is it? Is the presentation pleasing to look at? Is the important information clearly presented and emphasized? Are graphics used effectively? Are a few fonts used appropriately? Is white space used effectively? Is the spacing correct (indentations, space after punctuation, line spacing between paragraphs, leading)? Are the alignment and tab settings effective?) They could prepare a PowerPoint presentation about what they had learned to present to other teachers and staff about how they can be the resources for such documents. (Students love being able to do something better than teachers. What better feeling than that you know something and can use that skill to help others?)

Teach students how to create a template for all of their school papers, so that they do not have to create the heading, title, font, and formating each time, just open the template. Teach them how to use ruler and tab settings. There are four different kinds of tab settings and four different alignments. Why and how are they used? Show them how to set up a bibliography with hanging indents. Study fonts and determine why a serif font is best in the body of the text, while a sans serif font is best in titles and captions? (Look at textbooks to see how professionals do it.) What is the different between readability and legibility?

Have them create multiplication tables by using $ when writing the equation so that they only have to write one equation and then copy it across and then down.

Have them create grade sheets for recording their own grades in classes, have a cumulative grade calculated each time a score is entered, and have it convert to a letter grade with a look up table or if statement. Make them responsible for tracking their own grade and work through different scenarios like not handing in one assignment out of ten so that they see that a zero drops them 10% of one letter grade.

A fun project is to buy fun size bags of M&Ms and have students do a pie chart of the colors in one bag. They can even change the colors of pie segment to match. Their reward for completion is, of course, being able to eat the M&Ms. They could see if the ratio of colors is consistent between bags. [When else can you let them have food near a computer?]

Teach them how to use form letters and mail merge. Have them create thank-you letters and/or letters to their parents about their progress in class, inserting personal pieces of information into the letter with mail merge or a database. In a letter to their parents, they can even insert the spreadsheet of their grades. I have done a lesson with thank-you letters that have ten or more individual pieces of information embedded into the letter.

Have them creat a lesson for younger students using PowerPoint and a projector to teach how to use the following skills: spell check; find and change; cut, copy, and paste; move text; arrow keys to move the insert cursor; double click word selection and triple click line or paragraph selection; replacing without deleting, etc. Then have them teach a lesson to take "A purlpe cat you have" and change it to "I have a brown dog. You have a black dog." without using the delete key.

[Suzanne]

I give my students 1 week at the end of the semester to complete a project I redid from http://www.lymansite.net/Apps/InfoProc/BMtBike/bmbTours.htm website. It requires students to complete every thing they learned throughout the semester in a real business format. Like I said, I redid the instructions on much of it. Some of the instructions are unclear.

[Nuttyteacher]

Check out the books at this site - awesome!
bepublishing.com