Lesson 3 Blog

This week I learned about the uses of desktop publishing and word processing in the classroom. I also learned about how scanners and digital cameras are used to enhance instructional materials made with these programs. These tools can be used by both teachers and students. Teachers can use these programs to help meet NETS for teachers standard three. They need to be able to show their students that they have a strong working knowledge of these technologies to help effectively communicate to their students and their students’ families. Teachers can make flyers and letters to communicate with the parents of their students.

          Students can use these programs to help them meet standards one, two, three and six.  For standard one, student’s can use desktop publishing programs to create posters or redesign book covers. These activities could be tied into many different subjects, such as book reports or even science, where students could create a poster to represent different classification levels. This can be used to assess student’s understanding of the material and at the same time allow the children to express their creativity. Obviously, for standard six, students will need to know how to use these programs as they progress through their education and careers. While I do not know the exact numbers, I would guess that word processing programs are at the top of the list of most frequently used programs in education and the workplace.

          The picture attached to this blog shows a redesigned flyer that I made last fall to communicate to parents about a children’s theatre workshop. This workshop was being hosted by a community theatre organization that I helped found. The original version of this flyer was a very simple one page word document without any special formatting or graphics. As you can see from the picture,, I was able to reduce the amount of wording by using graphics. I feel that this redesigned flyer is much more concise and still communicates all of the vital information. For example I was able to replace the words “tennis shoes=best, flip-flops= worst” with a clipart picture of tennis shoes and flip flops; putting a green check over the tennis shoes and a red X over the flip flops communicates clearly the proper attire . I was also able to change the font size to make sure that the most important information was more prominent than the supporting, less important information.

          Because of my background in media I have had a wide array of experience with desktop publishing software including QuarkXpress. I am sure that I will be using these types programs not only to communicate with parents and also for student projects.