|
The Monster Project - Part I: Drawing
Your Monster
Using Office Tools (Paint and Word)
to promote collaboration and critical thinking.
We will teach how to do the basic
monster project, then supply you with suggestions for
classroom use – especially in Science.
 Curriculum
Idea: Even though the original project proposes
drawing a Monster, we propose you have your students
relate to today's topic on Imaging the Earth. Have them
draw a map and teach others how to draw that map, and the
other student has to guess which country it is just from
the written directions! Of course this would be a very
rough map, but it would help students realize the
difficulties of trying to capture the three dimensional
geographical features on paper. And how much more
difficult it was for early explorers to try to explain
their findings to the kings who had sponsored them! You
can tie a good Earth Science Lesson with the History
Lesson!
Do you have any other ideas? Please
share them with us!
Procedure:
The Monster Project Directions
Click on the link above to see how to
develop the project.
Today we will try to do Steps 1 and
2. Depending on the amount of time we have, we will draw
the monster and describe it as well. Whatever files you
make should be saved to a disk. We will be using these in
the next workshop.
Skills:
Ř
Create new files.
Ř
Open existing files.
Ř
Working with images:
o
Resizing
o
Using palettes
o
Saving vs. Save As…
o
Renaming
Ř
Toggling between two Windows (Word and
Paint)
Ř
Inserting Images in Word
Ř
Working with Fonts, Colors, Formatting
Ř
Inserting Tables – using tables to create
professional layouts (learn to configure borders, cell
format, etc.)
|
|
Continuing
the Monster Project:
Skills:
Ř
Create new files.
Ř
Open existing files.
Ř
Working with images:
o
Resizing
o
Using palettes
o
Saving vs. Save As…
o
Renaming
Ř
Toggling between two Windows (Word and Paint)
Ř
Inserting Images in Word
Ř
Working with Fonts, Colors, Formatting
Ř
Inserting Tables – using tables to create professional
layouts (learn to configure borders, cell format, etc.)
Since we
cannot save to disks, we will just practice other skills using
images that are ready.
- Go to Start/ Programs/ Microsoft Word and Open a New Document.
- Write a Title (Example: The Rock Monster!)
- Select the Title by highlighting it. You will do the following
with it: Center, Change Font, Change Font Size, Make it Bold,
Change the Color of the Font.
- After you are happy with the Title, just click outside of it
to unselect. Hit Enter to go to the next line.
- Insert a Table (Table/ Insert Table/ Choose 2 Columns and 1
Row). You will change it's properties to help you work with
advanced formatting (useful both for Word and Web Publishing!).
- Right-click on the Table and choose from the Menu that appears
Table Properties...
- You will do the following: Center, make it 80%, increase Cell
Padding and Cell Spacing, make the Cell Borders zero. Click OK in
the dialogue box you were working with. What happened to the
Table?
- This is the best way to format a text with words and pictures
in a way that they can be put side by side and all viewers see
your final product in the same way you want them to.
Now you are ready to insert an image into your document:
-
Go to
http://www.monsterexchange.org/minds-eye/ , and browse through
the gallery of monsters from previous years.
-
When you
find a monster you like, click on the image to see it larger.
-
Right-click on top of the image and choose from the menu that
appears: Save Picture As...
-
Choose to
save the image to the Desktop.
-
Go back to
your Word document.
-
Click
inside the left cell. Go to Insert / Picture / From File... / Go
to the Desktop / Find your image and click on it / Click on
Insert.
-
If you
want to centralize the image in the cell, right-click inside the
cell, choose Cell Alignment, and choose the alignment you wish
(for images, the best one is the centralized alignment).
-
Now click
inside the right cell and write up how to draw that monster you
chose. You can also align the text within the cell by following
the same procedure.
Linking
images and text to the web:
-
To create
a link, click once on your image to select it.
-
Click on
the hyperlink icon:
- Type in the URL you want to link it to. You can type in
http://www.monsterexchange.org if you like.
- Click OK.
- Your image is now linked to a website!
- To create a text link, if you write the URL and press space
bar or enter, Word will automatically create the link for you.
- If you want to link a word, select the word by highlighting it
with your mouse, click on the hyperlink icon, and type in the URL
you want that word to send the reader to, click OK.
- It's as simple as that!
- Save your document.
- If you want to transform it into a web page, just choose File/
Save as Web Page...
- To view your new web page, open a browser, click on File/
Open/ and find your new page.
|
Support |
Links
