Tag Archives: using technology in the classroom

Why Not Use Paint?

It is simple and has been around for a long time. Microsoft Paint is an effective and surprisingly powerful tool for the classroom. There are many more capable graphic editors and drawing programs available. But Paint is free and available as it is found in every Windows Start menu in the Accessories folder. It’s also easy to learn and use, and it has the basic tools needed to draw, color, and edit.

See the step-by-step instructions below to get to know the Paint tools. Then try a fun, creative drawing assignment from TechnoBudget. Get elementary or middle school students thinking and drawing. Use Paint to illustrate a money idiom. The literal meaning of the saying is painted in the picture while the real meaning is explained in a text box. Try it out!

Here are some money idioms to get your students started. Pick one and illustrate it!

Made of money	Laughing all the way to the bank
Money grows on trees	I am broke
That is a money pit	Money to burn
Money burns a hole in your pocket	A penny pincher
Spend money like water	Spend money like it is going out of style
Break the bank	A shoestring budget

Open Paint. Paint is included with the Windows operating system. It can be found by typing Paint into the search box on the taskbar, or under Accessories or Windows Accessories in the program listing.
Draw freehand:
1. Click the Pencil.
2. Click Size. Choose a line size.
3. From the Colors group, click the Color 1 box. Pick a color.
4. Click and drag in the drawing area.
Draw with a brush:
1. Click Brushes in the Shapes palette. Pick a brush option.
2. Choose a size and a color.
3. Click and drag to draw.
4. Experiment with the other brush choices.
Draw a straight line:
1. Click Line in the Shapes palette.
2. Click and drag to draw a line. Press the SHIFT key to make it straight.
3. Drag the end handle to change size or position
4. Select the line. Press the DELETE key to remove it.
Draw a curvy line:
1. Click Curve. Draw a line on the canvas.
2. Click on the line and drag to bend it.
Draw a polygon:
1. Click Polygon.
2. Click and drag to draw a line on the canvas.
  Click at different spots to draw the polygon sides.
  Click again on the start point to draw a filled shape.
3. To fill the shape with color, click Fill with color. Pick a color. Click inside the shape.
Draw a shape:
1. Choose a Shape from the Shapes palette.
2. Click Outline to pick an outline style and click Fill to pick a fill option.
3. From the Colors group, click the Color 1 box. Pick a color for the outline.
4. Click the Color 2 box. Pick a fill color.
5. Click and drag to draw the shape.
6. Drag a corner handle to change the size.
There are three ways to fix a mistake. Try them:
Note: Once you have clicked OFF a shape and it is not selected, you cannot make any changes to it.
1. Click Undo. Your last action will be cancelled.
2. Click Eraser. Click Size and pick an eraser size. Click the Color 2 box.
  Pick white. Click and drag to erase.
3. Click Select. Draw a box around the part of your drawing you want to erase. Press DELETE on the keyboard.
Draw a text box:
1. Click Text . Click and drag to draw a box.
2. Write the real meaning of the idiom. Select the text and explore the Text Tools Text tab to change the look:


Font	Font Size	Style	Color

use paint

Tips:

Drag a corner handle to alter canvas size.
Magnify an area using Zoom.
Copy and paste objects.
Undo or Redo an action.

This assignment is an extension activity from the technology project TechnoBudget. Teach personal finance. Middle school students budget for a shopping spree and justify a spending plan using Google Sheets or Excel lessons.

Develop financial literacy and money management skills.

Quick Search Tip for Quality Results

Any search tip that makes online research more efficient is a welcome relief for teachers and students. Researching online with students can be a time consuming and sometimes frustrating task. The amount of information available on the Internet is mind boggling. Too often searches result in a lot of worthless or irrelevant information, or data of questionable trustworthiness. How can searches limit results to quality content?

Limit a search to a website

Site:search is a great way to save time and limit search results. This method restricts a search to a particular site or a specific type of site. It’s simple: in the search box, type site: followed by the limiting factor and search topic.

For example, if you want to just search the Smithsonian website for information on Wilbur and Orville Wright, type site:smithsonian.com wright brothers. Results yielded will be all references within the Smithsonian web archives, instead of the millions of suggested sites that will appear after a search for ‘wright brothers’. Left out are blog or opinion articles, all commercial sites using the name Wright Brothers, or any other unrelated sites. As an added bonus, since the source of all information will be the Smithsonian Museum, you know that the facts will be authentic and trustworthy.

Limit a search to a domain type

Instead of limiting a search to just one site, you can restrict it to a type of site. This eliminates a whole minefield of biased or unreliable sources. For example, if you are searching for information about forestry and you type gc.ca Canada lumber, you will receive only sites that are published on Canadian government websites. Such information is authoritative and saves time researching the credibility of sources.

Here are some ways to restrict searches to trusted websites appropriate for classroom use.

Limit a Search to a Domain Type:
site:gov	site:org	site:edu
Limit a Search to Government Sites:
site:epa.gov	site:nasa.gov	site:loc.gov
Limit a Search to Organizations:
site:britishmuseum.org	site:pbs.org	site:worldwildlife.org
Limit a Search to Publications:
site:nationalgeographic.com	site:timeforkids.com	site:popsci.com
Limit a Search to Research-Based TV Shows:
site:history.com	site:biography.com	site:discovery.com

Teach your students the site:search tip. Their online research will be more efficient and will yield better, more legitimate results. TechnoResearch is a technology project that introduces essential research skills to elementary and middle school students. Learn how to plan, retrieve, process, share, and evaluate information. Using this fun and engaging project, students will acquire skills that are transferable to any inquiry challenge in all areas of the curriculum. Read more about TechnoResearch here.

10 Things You Should Know When Animating a Presentation

Whether you’re a teacher presenting a PowerPoint slide show to colleagues, parents, or students or if you’re teaching students how to give a dynamic presentation to their peers, following are ten tips to keep your audience hooked! Animating a presentation creatively can keep viewers engaged and interested.

Use a variety of animation types
There are lots of types of animation effects: an entrance effect makes an object appear, an emphasis effect draws attention to an object, a motion path makes an object move in a selected path on a slide, and an exit effect causes objects vanish. Consider adding more than one animation to an object – it can appear on the scene using a zoom entrance, then pulse using an emphasis effect, move around using a motion path, and finally fly out using an exit animation.
Be careful though. The variety of animations should not be unlimited. A repeated animation gives consistency to a presentation. For example, text on all slides always appearing the same way lends a professional touch to the presentation.

animating a presentation starburst

Plan the order of appearance of objects and text
What should show up first? second? third? Usually, you would start with the title, then text, then pictures. If there is a picture of a character and a callout with what he is saying, the picture should appear first, then the words. Sequence the animations in a logical order for what is on the slide.
Consider the audience when choosing animation effects
Lots of fun, exciting effects such as Boomerang, Bounce, Pinwheel are appropriate for younger children watching a slide show with lots of pictures, while presentations with text for adults would suit more moderate animations such as Fade, Wipe, or Float.
Group objects
If you want several objects to animate at one time, group them. To do this, click on a slide object and hold down the SHIFT key. Click on the other objects you want to include in the group. Once they are all selected, select Group.

animating a presentation group

Control flow of information
If there is bulleted text on the slide, the bullets should appear one point at a time. If no animation is applied and text appears all at once, people may read ahead and tune out extra information provided by the speaker. If the text is animated, ensure that there is ample time to read the words. Although you are familiar with your own slide show, remember that most viewers will be seeing it for the first time, and need extra time to read the words and watch the action.
Suit the type of animation to the topic
Pick appropriate effects. For example, a bounce effect works for a ball but not a car. Spinning text is confusing; appear, fade, and object color effects work better for words.
Choose effect options
Animation effects often have a number of options which can be adjusted in most apps. The type of options such as direction, speed, or color, vary with the particular type of effect. For example, you can choose to have text float in from the top or bottom. Not all animation effects have options.

animating a presentation

Manual or automatic?
Decide if you want to control the animations manually – use the On Click start action – or automatically – choose After Previous. Some apps, such as PowerPoint, allow you to change how an animation starts, how long it plays, and if there is a delay between effects. Some apps, such as Google Slides, set the speed as slow, medium, or fast. Make sure the animations play slowly enough so that a first time viewer is not confused by the action.
Make objects appear and disappear
When animating more than one text box on a slide, you can make them show and then vanish, one at a time. In this way, you can have several text boxes placed on top of one another, yet appear separately and then disappear. This is perfect when characters speaking or debating. A conversation can be animated on one slide.

animating a presentation debate

Don’t animate everything
Animating a presentation should attract viewer interest, not distract them. Clip art that is scenery such as a building or tree may look odd zooming onto the slide.

Have fun with animation using these TechnoKids technology projects.

Use TechnoPresenter to teach essential research and presentation skills. Students create a slide show on any topic of their choice, then build public speaking skills as their present to their peers.

In TechnoToon, students create a digital story that looks like a cartoon or animated comic strip. Inspire young writers and budding artists using Google Slides or PowerPoint.

Take a stand! Students collaborate with a partner to debate the pros and cons of a controversial issue of their choice in TechnoDebate. They use Google Slides or PowerPoint Online to prepare an animated debate.

Zoom Tool in PowerPoint for Awesome Presentations Part 2

PowerPoint Zoom Tool

In my previous post, I listed the steps to create a zoom to a slide using the Zoom Tool in PowerPoint 2016 and 2013. Don’t confuse this, as I did at first, with the zoom slider in all Microsoft programs that lets you change the magnification of your window. This is entirely different. The Zoom Tool automatically creates both a thumbnail of a selected slide and a link to that slide. Put these thumbnails on a title slide or any other slide to quickly and easily make buttons to link to slides in a presentation.

Slide Zoom

To make a Slide Zoom in a shorter presentation, see Zoom Tool in PowerPoint for Awesome Presentations Part 1.

Section Zoom

For longer presentations with many slides, you can organize the show into sections. First, group slides into categories and make separate sections. Then create a Section Zoom to link to each section. In this way, you can adjust the presentation for different audiences, easily navigate to different sections depending on viewer questions, or just go to specific sections to modify the presentation. Section Zooms are ideal because, after viewing each section, the user is taken back to the slide with all the Section Zooms.

Add a Section

Decide where you want to create a section. Right click between two slide thumbnails.
Click Add Section.
In the Rename Section box, replace Untitled Section with a name for the section. Click Rename.
Continue to divide the slide show into sections, renaming each section.

View the Sections

Click the View tab, and pick Slide Sorter.
View thumbnails of all of your slides organized into sections.

Create a Section Zoom

In Normal View, select the slide where you want to create the Section Zoom, most likely the title or a table of contents slide.
Click the Insert tab and pick Zoom.
Select Section Zoom.
In the Insert Section Zoom box, check each section to which you want to create a link. Click Insert.

Select Sections

Format Section Zooms (Optional)

If you want to change the appearance of the Section Zoom thumbnail, go to the Zoom Tools Format tab. Use the preset Zoom Styles or make your own style using the Zoom Border, Zoom Effects, and Zoom Background tools. You can even right click a zoom image and pick Change Image to replace it with an image or icon of your choice. Read my previous post about the Zoom Tool to see a listing of the Zoom Tools.

Summary Zoom

Whether you have sections or not, this option creates a new slide. It places zooms of all of the sections on the new slide, similar to a table of contents or landing page. You can also choose to have all the slides or just some of the sections on this new slide.
If the presentation has animations and timings are set to advance slides automatically, a summary zoom will play each section and then automatically go on to the next section that you’ve picked. This is a great option for a kiosk type of display.

From the Insert tab, pick Zoom.
Select Summary Zoom.
The Insert Summary Zoom box opens with each section preselected. (If you have no sections, you will have to choose which slides you want to zoom.) You can keep all the selected sections or you can choose to just pick the sections you want. Be sure to keep the checkmark on Keep unused sections in your presentation. Click Insert.
A new slide and section named Summary Section is created with zooms to each selected section. Resize or format the zoom thumbnails as desired using the Zoom Tools Format tab.

TechnoMap PowerPoint Lesson Plans

TechnoMap is a technology project that teaches map skills using PowerPoint. Students create an interactive map of a location, connecting places with events, issues, or people. In this project, students use Zoom to link markers on a map to slides explaining the significance of each area. Learn more about TechnoMap here.