Combining MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel for Final Exam

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on May 10, 2009 at 12:30pm

Earlier in the year I had students use all three in one larger project... It was an "introduce yourself" type assignment but I figure you could reconfigure it to be a "what happened this school year" type activity. Here is how I put it all together:

Excel - used as a timesheet to record on daily basis what was done and how much time was spent on that activity; spreadsheet needed to have cells converted to time and at least one formula totaling the time spent on the project
Word - used to type written report; also use create outline for the PP (outline was exported to PP once approved so that the emphasis was on content)
PowerPoint - visual representation of the Word essay (can then be uploaded to SlideShare & embedded into blog/wiki)

I thought I had left the specifics on Mr. Lane's Computer Applications - Web 2.0 Blog but apparently I took it down so I could make some revisons for next year. I will hunt them dow and send them along.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Shane Clay on May 10, 2009 at 12:39pm

Thats a good idea...May try that this year and use it at the beginning, like you did, next year....

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on May 10, 2009 at 5:30pm

Check out Dan Meyer's blog. He's done several neat projects (with kids and adults). One of them is "Four Slides Sales Pitch" and one is "My Annual Report". You need a lot of data for My Annual Report so it might be better to introduce earler in the year. I guess you could do "A Weekly Report" or "My Week in Data". Good luck, let us know where you end up.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Barry Bakin on May 11, 2009 at 1:14am

I have my adult Intermediate Level ESL students complete a short "research project" in which they collect data about a topic they have chosen. They create a simple graph in Excel displaying the results of the research. The Excel graph then becomes one of the slides of a PowerPoint presentation that accompanies an oral presentation to the class and selected visitors on "presentation day." While I don't have the students do anything with Word for this particular project, you could certainly include a Word component by having them create a final report, doing some background research to support their project and writing about it with a bibliography, or by having them create documents such as data tally sheets to help them as they do their research. For examples of student work including the original Excel worksheets, the PowerPoint presentations and even some videos of students doing their final presentations, see http://esl.adultinstruction.org/ResearchProject.htm

Including an oral component to the exercise is an important part of ESL instruction of course, but in addition, since the PowerPoint is meant to accompany an actual presentation, the students learn about good presentation technique (where to stand, how to use a laser pointer, voice projection, etc.) and are forced to listen to and respond to questions from the audience.

The topics I have my students do are not complicated since I only have a short period of time in which to complete the entire process, but you could certainly require your students to do more complex assignments.

• ▶ Reply