Week 11 Microsoft Publisher: Using desktop publishing programs to enhance your classroom activities. Project #7

To do this week

1. Why Publisher?

If teachers are ringmasters in a circus of daily decision making, then there is no question that organization is a critical survival skill. One way that teachers commonly bring order to the chaos of instruction is to label everything — from the classroom door to student cubbies, reading corners, homework trays, coat racks, equipment lockers and so on.

Microsoft Publisher is representative of a class of software applications designed to create these labels, signs, flyers, cards, nametags, posters, newsletters and other desktop publishing (DTP) documents that help teachers organize their classrooms and resources.

You are going to create two products using MS Publisher. One product will be a brochure for classroom or school events. The other one is up to your choice.

Publish the two products to your eportfolio website. And HAVE FUN!  

2. Products

Product #1 Brochures

Develop a brochure of classroom activities or school events.

To develop a brochure, you need to decide the format and paper size for the brochure and have an idea how it will look when it is printed on paper.

How to make a brochure - handout in PDF

Flash movie tutorial for creating a brochure (created by Michael)

Product #2 Any publication of your chioce

You can create any kind of publication for this. It could be labels, signs, flyers, cards, nametags, posters, letterheads, award certificates, newsletters and other desktop publishing (DTP) documents. The requirement is that it needs to be related to classroom or schools.

3. Technical skills: learning by doing

You are expected to have the following technical skills:

1) Define DTP and distinguish from word-processing.
2) Demonstrate how to draw, move, resize shapes.
3) Demonstrate how to fill objects with color.
4) Demonstrate how to utilize WordArt and ClipArt.
5) Demonstrate how to set object layer ordering.
6) Demonstrate how to draw, format text boxes.
7) Demonstrate how to work with multiple pages

Publication types:

1) Flyers
2) Brochures.
3) Newsletter

Get familiarized with the design of each one. Color schemes, font schemes, paper size (how printed hard copies look), and working with multiple pages also need to be learned.

4. Resources

4.1 MS Publisher 2003 Tutorial by Randolph-Macon Woman’s College: 1.6 MB - 63 Page Word Document

4.2 Brochure examples

Newsletter examples

• Example Newsletters from Scholastic
• Example Newsletter from Intel 1
• Example Newsletter from Intel 2
• Example Newsletter from Intel 3
• Example Newsletter from Intel 4

Flash movie tutorial for creating Newsletters (created by Michael)

Why Publisher instead of Word Processor?

Although Microsoft Word is an immensely capable word-processing application, it is less suited for creating desktop publishing documents that require precise layout control and object formatting.

4. Q & A

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Thanks go to Dr. Sophia Tan and her colleagu Dr. Joe Winslow from Coastal Carolina University for sharing their wisdom. Thanks also go to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College for their resources.