Publisher

Today's review is of Microsoft Publisher. This software forms part of Microsoft's 'Office' package and is thus installed on most computers (well not Apples).
With this software being so widespread I was surprised that so many people hadn't used it before.

We used it in the workshop to make a travel brochure (see image left). Publisher is great for these template type designs. It makes attractive designs at the click of a button and requires only the user to insert correct information. The user can then play around with the design, e.g. insert images, change fonts and colors.

As a classroom activity is it appropriate for students as young as Grade One. I have had the experience of teaching a lesson where the output required was a yearly calendar.
The image (left) took only a few clicks of the mouse to create and was similar to what I was expecting from Grade Ones and Twos.

However when students don't have the basic editing and navigational skills, simple tasks can become very complicated.
Thus developing these skills is really important, as they are transferable across a whole range of software products.

I ran this class twice, with two different groups and learned some things in the process.

1. Even when I tried my hardest to give clear step by step instructions (demonstrating on projector and writing up the steps on the whiteboard) the class was chaos. The students without the core computer skills were all having problems. Even if something only takes a few clicks to make, a few clicks in the wrong direction can get you somewhere else entirely.
   
2. Students couldn't retain the whole group instruction, I was getting a lot of questions and I couldn't answer individual questions at a fast enough rate.

Therefore I came up with a solution the second time I taught the class. I created a video playing it on loop through the projector. It shows how to get through the simple yet difficult steps.
That meant I didn't have the same amount of questions being flung at me and I had time to manage the classroom and do other things teachers do. E.g. fix the printer.


The software( BB FlashBack) comes in a free version for download.
Note image quality has been reduced when converting to the blog's media player, image quality is normally excellent.

Coming back to Publisher we also covered the use of it for making a e-Portfolio. This is something I have never done before and was genuinely impressed. It enables users to make a website (browser run file would be more appropriate) in a quick, easy, attractive way with a range of detailed templates to use. Although these templates were aimed at making a business website they can be easily changed. The links on the page were also easy to change which I was particularly pleased with. Now to get onto my own e-Portfolio!

An other practical issue you might like to consider is the availability of color printing. This can make a big difference to the quality of the final piece. A solution could be to tell students before hand to that it will only be black and white and to show them how to preview in Gray scale. The even better solution is to get access to a colour printer, although expensive, it makes a real difference.