Literacy Activities with Presentation Software

Word Processing Activity

1. Set up an email for a key character in the story you will be using. If you would like the responses to the students’ emails to be immediate, another teacher will need to be briefed about the character and the story and be available on another computer. 2. Use a story which will appeal to the students’ interest and read an extract which is sufficient to stimulate interest and curiosity main character. 3. If the students are unfamiliar with the rules for Exploratory Talk, these should be discussed at this point. 4. Once the scene has been set, organise the students into smaller groups to produce three questions they would like to ask the character. It is important that the students are reminded about reaching decisions through Exploratory Talk. 5. One student should act as a scribe for each group to record their questions.

Resources Needed

• An email address for the lead character in a story; • Email accounts for the students and safe/secure emailing client; • A colleague teaching a parallel class; • An adult willing and able to participate in a role-playing situation; • A story book with a key main character.

The following activities are derived from PowerPoint Magic (Lewis, P., 2008, p34-46).

Activity 1: My First Stories

Lesson Description

Students create simple illustrated stories, incorporating words from a spelling list by inserting text into a text box and using the Insert Online picture button to insert a picture.

They first read about animals with the teacher and identify the story elements: the title, who the story was about, what happened in the beginning, the most exciting part, and what happened at the end. They comment on the illustrations that help to convey meaning. Students then make up their own stories, using words from a spelling list, typing the text into a slide, and choosing pictures to illustrate it so that someone other than the student writer can read the story.

This activity is completed in one lesson, and students do not need to fully develop their stories. Instead they are being asked to practice and develop their writing skills on the computer. Students should be instructed to pay attention to conventions and try to begin each sentence with an uppercase letter and end each sentence with a full stop. Students highlight the spelling words in a different colour and search online pictures for a pictures. This search activity encourages students to pay careful attention to the correct spelling of words, as they can only locate the pictures if the words are spelled correctly.

Achievement Standards

• Create texts drawing on their own experiences, imagination and information they have learned; • Create texts that show how images support the meaning of the text; • They use punctuation accurately and write words legibly using unjoined upper and lower case letters; • They accurately spell words with regular spelling patterns; • They use a variety of strategies to engage in group and class discussions and make presentations.

Higher Order Skills Analysis: Analyse the components of the story that is read to the class and discussed how it is organised.

Synthesis: Create and share an original story that uses spelling words and pictures. Insert text

Insert pictures

Change font colour

Right-click marked words for spelling suggestions English (ACELA1466)

ICT Capability LC: Communicating with ICT.

PowerPoint Activity

1. Students open a new blank presentation in PowerPoint and choose the Title Only slide layout. 2. Students click on the text box to select it, then enter their text inside the box. Students may need instruction in how to use the Shift key to make an uppercase letter. 3. Students insert a picture into the slide. The picture can then be resized or moved. 4. Students highlight the spelling words and change them to a different colour. 5. Students look for misspelled words. If words are marked as misspelled (underlined with a red wavy line), students can get hints for correct spelling by right-clicking the underlined word. They then leftclick on the correct option to replace the word. 6. Students print their story by going to the File menu and clicking on Print > Handouts > 2 slides per page > OK.

Resources Needed

• List of spelling words provided by teacher; • Picture dictionary to help students spell search words.

ICT Techniques Curriculum Context

Activity 2: What do I see?

Lesson Description

This lesson asks students to reflect on a science experiment with fruits and seeds. Students take photographs as they cut up pieces of fruit, then remove, count and examine the seeds.

Set up a Fruit and Seeds template as indicated for students to insert photographs they have taken of their investigation of seeds and fruits. Students label the photographs and include their observations on each slide.

Alternatively, the teacher can print the slide show, and students take home the printouts and write a sentence next to each slide to document their findings about the fruit.

Students use the Fruit and Seeds template the teacher created in the form of a comparison table (as shown) to compare and classify fruits. This slide may be printed for students to write on as they make their observations.

Apple

Orange

Grape

Tomato

Plum

Watermelon

WRITE A PARAGRAPH COMPARING SEEDS OF THE FRUITS YOU CUT UP:

Students use a table in PowerPoint to organise and compare information from their classroom observations. They then write a paragraph to summarise their findings.

Higher Order Skills

Analysis: Explain classroom activities by referring to photographs.

Application: Relate what is observed to prior knowledge, or to information in books or to online sources.

ICT Techniques

Insert text

Insert a photograph from a file

Browse photographs to select an appropriate one.

Move from cell to cell in a table.

Print handouts two per page, six per page, or three per page with lines. English (ACELA1466)

ICT Capability LC: Communicating with ICT.

Science

PowerPoint Activity

1. Students open the Fruit and Seeds template. 2. Students add their name to the first slide. 3. On the following slides, students insert their photographs of the fruit. The pictures can be resized. 4. Students add text to each slide to record their observations. 5. Students enter information about each fruit in the comparison table, and then writea a short summary paragraph on the last slide. 6. Students print their slide show by going to File menu and clicking on Print > Handouts > 2 slides per page > OK.

Curriculum Context

Evaluation: Students evaluate photographs that have been taken, and select to insert in their slide show; students compare their findings about the different fruits; students support their findings with online and print references.

Resources Needed

• Fruit; • Digital camera; • Online encyclopedia.