You can either watch the video and follow the directions or scroll down and read/look at what to do. If you want to watch the video, you NEED HEADPHONES and should only watch a bit at a time. Watch until I do something, pause the video, and go do what I did. Come back and watch some more after you’re done or review if you’re lost.

Switch to the COUNT tab

Excel can count for you any cells that have numbers in them. On the COUNT sheet, we’ve got a sample of a survey. Every time someone chooses a favourite flavour, we put a 1 in the box, and then we’re going to ask Excel to count those up for us. In this example, it wouldn’t be hard to count them yourself, but again, if the answers changed for whatever reason, now Excel will keep track of those numbers as they change.

First, pretty up your sheet. One thing that we haven’t discussed is how to use a title across different columns.

This one has a title that says Favourite Ice Cream, but right now, it’s only showing in the first cell. I want it to go across four columns.

 

Select the 4 cells you want to join (A to D)

On the Home tab/menu, you’ll see a Merge & Center button:

Clicking that will make that one cell into a wide cell that spans 4 columns:

For this one, I want to know how many people prefer each type of ice cream. In this case, we could easily count them, but on a bigger sheet, or if the answers were to change, a formula would work much better.

The formula we want on this sheet is called COUNT. This formula will only count NUMBERS. In my weird example, the answer would be the same as if we added them, but even if the numbers were larger, all it would do is count the number of numbers, not add them together.

After the formula, you have to put your cell choices in brackets, so type an open bracket)

Then go select the cells you want to count. For Chocolate ice cream, we’d choose B4 and drag down to B19

Close the bracket to finish the formula

Answer:

Since we’re applying the same formula to other nearby cells, Fill Handles are your friend!

 

Your finished formulas will look like this:

 

Switch to the COUNTIF sheet

Pretty it up!

The COUNT formula we used last time only works with numbers. This time we’re going to count cells with text. The formula is written down below in cell A22

You can write it out or use the miracle of Copy and Paste

But we need to modify the formula as it stands, because right now it won’t do anything. We need to tell it where to look and what to look for.

 

The first part of the formula inside the brackets tells it where to look, so click right inside the brackets

Then either type in the cells you want to check or just click and drag to select

The second part tells the formula what to look for.  In this case, we want to look for the letter c, so inside the quotation marks, type a c

The Vanilla column is basically the same, except it looks in column C and looks for a letter v

And strawberry looks in column D and looks for an s

What if we want to count all of the cells that have a letter in them (or any text, really)? Well, just stick with that asterisk. It’s a “wildcard” that looks for any text at all

So here you can select columns B, C, and D to look for c, v, or s

Your finished sheet should look something like this

With the formulas, it looks like this:

 

Switch to the CONCAT sheet

Here you will learn to concatenate, or join two things together.

Let’s say for some reason we want to combine whatever is in column A (Name) with whatever is in column B (Favourite) and have column C display them both.

Your formula starter is in cell A26

In cell C4, we want a formula that looks like this:

That says that we want to take whatever is in A4, adds a space ” ” then combines it with B4. Separate the parts with commas.

And your result should look like this:

A4, space, B4

Our old friend the Fill Handle would come in really handy here

Now let’s fill in some totals down below

Start with B22 and count how many cells have text to get our total number of responses

Move down below and count how many cells contain the word chocolate

Then vanilla

and strawberry

Your finished sheet will look like this:

And the formulas look like this:

 

Move on to the SORT sheet to learn about one of Excel’s other really valuable and important functions

Sometimes you have a list of data and you want to organize it. Right now, I have a list of all of the students in my previous school and it’s organized/sorted by first name

But what if I want to see class lists? Well, all you have to do is go into the Data menu/tab

and click Sort

A box will pop up and it has a few important options

First, make sure you check off My data has headers. This means that we don’t want to sort the first row, so we want to leave it alone

It usually comes up with a suggested sort order, but you may have to click Add Level

The first way we want to sort is by Class/Gender

That will put all of the classes together and the girls and boys together, but we also want them to be sorted by their first name. So the data should be sorted by Class/Gender, Then by Name

Mine came out like this (not sure why)

So I want to select and delete those empty rows

Now we have a list that’s sorted the way we want!

 

 

This final sheet is one that I’d like you to do on your own. I decided to be a nice guy (it does happen from time to time) and walk you through an example before you do the last one on your own.

 

Good luck!

Drop this off in your OneDrive folder, inside the shared folder with your name, when you’re done!

Excel is primarily used for mathematical functions and keeping track of numbers. You can make graphs & charts, analyze data, and do all kinds of mathematical equations. That’s what we’ll start to do.

You’ll need to download and open this file: formulas

SAVE that file into your ONEDRIVE folder!

You can either watch the video and follow the directions or scroll down and read/look at what to do. If you want to watch the video, you NEED HEADPHONES and should only watch a bit at a time. Watch until I do something, pause the video, and go do what I did. Come back and watch some more after you’re done or review if you’re lost.

IMPORTANT:

Excel has this goofy new way of displaying Column names and it makes this assignment REALLY difficult if you aren’t careful. At the top of your sheets, your columns should be named with LETTERS, NOT NUMBERS.

If you see NUMBERS across the top, like THIS:

You need to go into the File menu/tab at the top left:

Open Options:

Go on the Formulas page:

And make sure the first check mark is turned OFF. You DO NOT WANT R1C1 reference style!

 

If you look at the bottom of the screen, you will see different pages or SHEETS

Each sheet asks you to do different calculations.

You should RESIZE your COLUMNS to properly fit the information contained in each one

You should also add a splash of colour to make your sheet look nice and to make it easier to read

Start with the CALCULATIONS sheet on the left. When you are done, it should look kinda sorta like this:

The cells in yellow contain the answers, but I did not figure out the answers on my own (too hard for me), I let Excel do the math for me!

To get Excel to do math, you always start your forumla with an equal sign =

Then you select which cells you want to perform. I don’t just want it to add 10 + 5, I want to add whatever is in cell B2 and whatever is in cell C2 to get the answer in D2

So I would type an equal sign then click on B2

Then add a plus sign and click on C2

The cool thing now is that if you change either of the numbers, the answer will change too

For the next one, type an equal sign, then click on the number in B3 (you can also type it in) then a minus sign, then click on or type C3, then enter

Next, you need to know that the sign for multiplication is an asterisk *

And the sign for division is a slash

For the next section, those are some complicated formulas! Nobody is going to figure those out in their heads, so a little help from the technology sure comes in handy. Fill in the formulas EXACTLY as they are written in the first column (boy, if only there was a way to use the formulas already written there instead of recreating them ourselves…)

You get the idea. Fill in the last two yourself. Your answers should look like this:

Before you move on to the next sheet, pretty up your page! You should always make your titles and headings stand out from the data so your page looks better and is easier to read. Use fonts, sizes, text colours, shading, bold/italics/underline, etc. to make your page look a lot better.

 

Switch to the next sheet, which is called Average

Your finished product will look something like this:

Start by figuring out the Term 1 average for Math (D2)

(Option A: THE HARDER WAY) To figure out an average, you take your mark, divide by whatever it’s out of, then multiply by 100. In this case, that’s:

=B2/C2*100

or…

(Option B: THE SMARTER WAY)

If you know what type of information a cell is going to contain, you can get Excel to do some of the work for you. You’ll notice that my percentages do not have a % symbol beside them. You could tell Excel that anything in those particular boxes is going to be a percentage by changing the Cell Format.

On the Home tab/menu, you’ll see a section called Number, and a drop box that probably says General

If you change that box to Percentage, Excel will do part of the math for you and will add the percentage symbol! It’ll automatically multiply by 100 so you don’t have to do that step.

Change the Cell Format to Percentage:

Then, you only need to do the first part of the division where you divide your mark by what it’s out of!

Type in:

and the answer should be:

You can also use that Number formatting to control how many decimal places are displayed. You can increase the number of decimal places shown with the button on the left:

Or decrease the number of decimal places shown with the button on the right. I’ll round off my numbers by clicking that one twice:

Now my overall percentage is rounded off to a whole number:

 

You’re going to use that same formula for all of your subjects, so you could go and type that in for each subject….

or…

You can use one of the coolest features of Excel and save yourself a LOT of work!

Any time you type in a Formula (or anything, really) there’s a tiny little square in the bottom right corner. That’s called a FILL HANDLE

If you put your cursor on that square, it changes into a little cross

You can take that formula and apply it to other cells by dragging that FILL HANDLE down!

Excel takes the formula and changes it for you so that it calculates each row separately!

Do those same steps for the other terms!

Your formulas will look like this:

Now we need to figure out the Average for the year for each class. Start with Math (K2). Excel has a bunch of predetermined formulas already within it. You can type the equal sign then start typing in Average and it’ll pop up a list of formulas for you to choose from. Double click AVERAGE

Then you need to just go click on Term 1% (D2), insert a COMMA, then click Term 2% (G2), then another COMMA, then click Term 3% (J2)

OR click Term 1% (D2), HOLD DOWN CTRL then click Term 2% (G2), then click Term 3% (J2)

Use that FILL HANDLE to apply that formula to your other classes…

Now we need to calculate our Overall Average (B11)

Click in that cell and start typing Average… double click the right formula.

This time, you can click on your Math average (K2) and DRAG down to your Practical Arts average (K8)

Hit enter and bingo!

 

Next you can go to the FILL sheet

Your finished product will look kinda sorta like this:

The formula for calculating Heat is provided at the bottom (A10)

Click in D2, type equal sign, then start creating the formula

Again use the FILL HANDLE to make life easier for yourself

Pretty up your page and you’re done!

Switch your sheet to Max. & Min.

This one asks you to compare the prices of some fictional computer packages.

The numbers on this sheet should be prices, so they should look like money:

Highlight those cells:

and on the Home menu/tab, change the Format from General to Currency:

those should now look like prices:

 

Finished sheet:

Start with the Price Before Tax of the first package (D2)

Here’s another cool trick. Excel has some formulas that you can apply with just the click of a button. On the HOME tab, look for The AutoSum button at the far right

Click it! It’ll try to figure out what you want to add.

Unfortunately, it sometimes guesses wrong, so carefully check and make sure that it’s adding up all of the right numbers! (A2 + B2 + C2)

If it’s right, Fill Handles are your friends!

Now we have to calculate the tax. PST is 7% of the price, so we take the complete package price and multiply by .07 (=D2*.07)

Fun with Fill Handles!

GST is 5% (D2*.05)

Then we have to add the package price + PST + GST to get the Total Cost. Again, the AutoSum button comes in handy, but it’s sometimes wrong, so you might have to adjust the formula. Wrong:

Right!:

Fill it on down!

Down below, we’re going to figure out what the average price is for the packages

And figure out which one is highest and which is lowest

For the Highest Price, we want a formula called MAX:

And then make sure that it looks in the Total Cost column:

The opposite of MAX is MIN

your finished formulas look like this:

 

 

Part 2 will go over the rest of the sheets, but I’d bet that you can figure most of them out yourself!

 

 

 

It’s time to dive in to the true powers of Excel by examining just a few of the amazing calculations and transformations you can make using Formulas.

When you first open Excel, there are some cool tutorials right on the Home page. Find the one that says Formula tutorial/Get started with Formulas:

If you see that link, just click it and then click Create:

If you can’t find it for some reason, you can download a copy from THIS LINK

NOTE: you need to remember to make sure that your file is saving in OneDrive!

NOT SAVING:

it should look like this:

 

Just like in your PowerPoint Quiz, this Workbook has links that you can click to progress. Click Let’s Go on the first sheet:

There are some instructions on the left:

And you’ll fill in the formula on the right. Remember that Excel should be doing the math for you! You are NOT TYPING IN THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION! You are showing Excel how to calculate the answer for you! If you are doing any math yourself, you are DOING IT WRONG

If you’ve done it correctly, it’ll look like this:

but you will have actually typed in this (and yes, I’ll check):

Work through all of the sheets in the Workbook until you get to the last one, Formula Errors:

Now it’s time to add holidays, birthdays, special events, and significant days for you!

You may find this link useful: https://canada-holidays.ca/provinces/MB/2024

You could even find some unusual honourary days. Here’s one list: https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/

If you want to add school holidays and inservices, you can check THIS CALENDAR

The first one is January 1, New Year’s Day

I notice that it doesn’t quite fit and it doesn’t look great all in one line like that. You can break your text into different lines by turning on “Wrap Text” on the Home tab:

Now that text will start a new line instead of running out of space.

You might also wish to look at how the text is sitting in the box. You can have it sitting on the bottom of the box, against the top, or right in the middle. Right above where you’d center text horizontally, you can choose how it sits vertically as well.

If you like the way that looks, you may wish to COPY (Ctrl + C) and then paste that onto the next holiday.

Add whatever holidays and special days you want! Add your family members’ birthdays, school inservice days (check THIS calendar for those)

Go through all of your months and add as many special days, holidays, and events you’d like! In general, there would likely be at least one special day per month.

You can add pictures, shapes, or icons to your calendar:

The last thing that you’ll want to do is figure out how to fill up the blank spaces. Most months will have a big space either at the beginning or end of the month that you can use for pictures, quotes, or whatever you like!

Take some time and fill up those blank spaces and make sure that every page looks amazing!

You may wish to download a copy of the file below by CLICKING on it or you can download a copy HERE

Now it’s time to take that template page and create our first month. I’ll start my calendar at January, but often a calendar will start in September! When you print a proper calendar, you actually need to print pages in multiples of 4, so a typical calendar has at least 1 extra month. Plus, you often get a new calendar before the year is over, and it’s nice to be able to use the calendar when you get it. If you want to start yours in December or right now, feel free to add extra pages using these instructions!

First, find that template tab at the bottom of the screen and Right-Click. You want to select Move or Copy… from the menu that pops up:

In the next window, you want to select (move to end) and make sure you turn on Create a copy:

Then you will have a tab that’s called template (2). Double click on that tab to change the name. I’ll call mine January 2024:

When you do that, you’ll see that same text appear at the top of the page in that Header area

January 1, 2024 is actually a Monday, so we want to move the first over a day. All you need to do is select the cell where the 1 is and backspace to delete whatever is in the box:

You’ll notice that the first is now on a Monday!

You could do each individual box, but it’s easier to get rid of a bunch at a time if you have more than one day to remove. Go to the bottom row and select all of the date from 35 to 41 by clicking and dragging:

On the Home menu, you’ll see an eraser. Click into it and choose Clear All:

January has 31 days, so go ahead and select everything from 32 to 34 and Clear All for those cells as well:

I’ll Clear that first cell as well. In the end, my January calendar looks like this:

Start at the top and repeat the process for every month. Remember to start from the template page every time.

and so on!

Now that you’ve got your template page set up, let’s make it look nice!

If you zoom out to look at the whole page

you’ll notice that there’s a lot of blank space. There’s also not much space to add in the holidays and special events that we’ll want on our calendar:

There are a couple of ways of filling your page. I like to leave the rows with the numbers a little shallower than the box below where I add holidays and special events.

I like to select just the rows with the empty boxes. You can click on a row number, then hold CTRL on your keyboard and click another row to select multiple rows. In my example, I’m selecting the odd rows, starting with row 3:

Then, I go between row 13 and row 14 and pull down A TINY BIT. This will expand all of those rows, so don’t pull far because that additional space adds up very quickly!

If you pull too far, you’ll stretch your calendar onto another page:

If you go too far, just pull the bottom of the last row selected up until it all fits on one page

 

If you prefer, you could expand the number rows as well. I don’t like it quite as much myself, but it is a little easier.

You could select row 2 and then drag down to row 13 or Shift + click on 13 to select all of your rows

Again, make sure you don’t pull too far or it will go onto another page:

I just noticed that I don’t really like the look of my numbers. I want to add some shading and a border around both cells that represent one day.

I centred the number and shaded in that box with a different colour. Then I selected both cells (shift and click or shift and drag down) and added Outside Borders:

I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to do that for all 42 days. Once you have something formatted the way you like, you can copy the formatting options and apply them elsewhere. Start by selecting whatever you want to copy the formatting from:

On your top toolbar, you’ll see a paintbrush. It’s called the Format Painter. Double click that to pick up the formatting:

When you copy something, you’ll see a dotted line dancing around the cell you’re copying:

Then you just go Paint those formatting options onto your other cells:

You’ll have to click that paint brush tool between rows, but once you’ve copied the formatting, you can apply it wherever you like

For me, that looks much better.

You could, at this point, also add Pictures or Illustrations if you wish. I’ll do that later so they aren’t the same on every month, but if you want to, you could go into the Insert menu and look at your options there:

Remember to use high quality images, such as the ones you can get from Unsplash. I like to find photos on Unsplash or elsewhere, download them onto my computer, then go into the Insert menu and add them to my page

We are going to start using a very powerful and interesting program called Excel. It creates spreadsheets, which generally help you to keep track of data. There are many, many different uses for Excel and it is a very good program to know something about. Lucky for you, you’ve signed up for the right class!

First, as always, make sure OneDrive is running on your computer… (you did that already today, right?)

Then, open Excel

Please start a Blank Workbook

Right now, your file will have a TERRIBLE name and might be saving in the wrong spot. Look at the top for the file title and click it

Give it a better name! Never leave a file as Book1 (or whatever number). We’re making a Calendar:

If it’s saving in your OneDrive, that’s good…

But you may wish to put it in your ICT folder. I’ll click More options…

Then Browse to find my ICT folder

and put my file there

Now it’ll AutoSave and the file name will be correct

I recommend going into the View menu

and choosing Page Layout, since we are designing something in pages that could be printed

Now go into the Page Layout menu

and change the Orientation to Landscape (remember that from Word?)

You shouldn’t have to change the page Size, but check and make sure that it’s on Letter:

At the top of your page, you’ll see something that says Add header. That’s something that can be automatically added to each of your pages. Click that box.

You’ll probably be automatically directed to the Header & Footer menu, but switch to that if not:

In that header box, we’ll insert the Sheet Name. Press that button:

The pages in your “Workbook” are called Sheets. You’ll see a little tab at the bottom of the screen that says Sheet1

Double click into there and change the name of this page to template

You’ll now see that in that top box

You know how I’m always on your case to remember to change the font? We’ll make sure you can’t leave this boring, lame format on any of your pages

At the very top left, you’ll see a little striped triangle that you can use to select everything on your Sheet

Click it!

That will select all of the boxes (CELLS) on your Sheet:

Choose a font that looks good to you! Want your calendar to be fancy? Pick a fancy looking font! Want it to be silly? Pick one that looks silly! Want it to be serious? Pick one that looks serious!

JUST MAKE SURE IT’S EASY TO READ!

I like to make my writing a little bigger

You could even change the colour of your writing if you like:

 

You can (and should) format other elements later with different fonts, sizes, and colours, but this just makes sure that you have a look to start from that you have chosen yourself!

 

Excel is kind of magical. It can kind of predict what you want to be in those Cells sometimes.

Go into the top left cell and type Sunday:

At the bottom right of that cell, there’s a tiny little square. It’s actually a handle that you can pull

If you click on that handle, you can drag it to the right  to fill in the other days of the week:

Excel will do some magic and put the names of the other days of the week in for you:

You might notice (depending on the font and size that you chose) that some don’t fit and there’s lots of extra space on the right side of your page. You can adjust the width of your columns so they fill up the page and the words fit better.

If you click on one of the Column numbers at the top, it’ll turn green and will highlight the column of cells below. If you click and drag across (or click one, hold Shift, and click 7), it’ll highlight all of those columns at once: 

If you go on the line between 7 and 8 and DRAG that line to the right a little bit, it’ll resize all of those columns at once!

Adjust the width until your days all fit on the page and you don’t have any extra columns:

I don’t like how my text looks. I realize that I forgot to center it and I want to add a border and some shading.

You can select an entire ROW (horizontal) the same way you selected the Column. Find a row number on the side and click it to select everything in that row:

I want my days to be centered:

Much better!

I’m also going to put a border around those (choose your own options):

And I’ll shade them in:

 

Now go into the box below the first Sunday and type the number 1. That’s the only number you’ll need to type in!

Click on the box next to 1 (below the first Monday):

Excel is a great tool for doing Math. You don’t even have to know how to do the math yourself because Excel is smarter than you. When you want Exccel to do math, the first thing you type in is an Equal sign (=). Go into the next box and type an =

after the Equal sign, go click on that cell where you entered the number 1

That cell’s location will be put into the formula after the Equal sign:

That would just put a 1 into this box. We want to take whatever is in that box and add 1, so type in +1

Hit Enter on your keyboard and you should see a 2 in the box (not very impressive, I know, but WAIT!)

Remember that little Handle at the bottom right of a Cell? Drag it to Saturday:

Cool!

for the next set of numbers, SKIP A ROW OR TWO

I’m putting my next set in Row 4

Here, I’ll start with an Equal sign, then click on the 7th (under Saturday), then add +1

That gives me the start of the next row, but I need to do one more formula (LAST ONE) to add one to that number. In the next Cell, type that Equal sign, then click the 8, then +1

That gives me the 9. Then I use that Handle and drag it across…

Bingo!

BUT WAIT, there’s MORE!

Click on the 8. Hold Shift. Click on 14. That will select all of those cells.  

Copy those! Either Right Click and choose Copy, or Ctrl + C

When you Copy a Cell, it’ll have a flashing line around it:

Now skip another row (or two, depending on what you did before) and click on the next row where you want numbers:

Then Right Click and Paste (or Ctrl + V)

And it’ll do the math for you in the next row!

Skip another row and Paste again! You don’t even need to Copy again!

Do that until you have 6 rows of numbers. It’ll go up to 42. I know there are no months with 42 days. DUH!

 

 

Next, we’ll take a look at a super common program, which I kind of hate.

One of the first programs that people tend to play around with is PowerPoint. You’ve surely made slideshows for presentations or projects in other classes. The problem with PowerPoint, and the reason I hate it so much is that it looks too easy and everybody uses it horribly. You can get started really easily and make a presentation that you think looks lovely but usually, they’re not actually very good.

Most of the time, people don’t have a clue just how much PowerPoint can do. We’ll create a project that shows you some of the many, many options available in PowerPoint, and I’ll encourage you to play with the program and discover new possibilities and capabilities.

You’re going to create a simple multiple-choice quiz on a topic of your choice. The idea is to teach someone about something that you know. If you know a lot about hockey or cars or BTS, feel free to make a quiz about that. If you aren’t an expert on something like that, an easy topic that you’re guaranteed to know a lot about is yourself!

Choose a topic and start by figuring out what your questions will be. Have an organized quiz that makes some sort of sense. You will have ONE slide that tells people that they’ve gotten the answer wrong and directs them back to try the question again (mine is a little bit different but would take more work, so you shouldn’t do that the same as me.)

Each of your questions will have a slide telling the viewer that the answer is correct, and it should provide a bit more information about the question. That slide will direct the viewer to the next question.

You can view my example here.

 

Start by opening PowerPoint

Choose Blank Presentation!

I know you’re tempted to choose one of the fancy templates, but DON’T!

STAY AWAY FROM THESE:

The first thing to do as always, is to SAVE your file

Either click the Save button

or go into the File menu and choose Save

The best way to go is to choose Browse

and make sure your file goes into your Documents folder

What’s your quiz about? Call it THAT! Mine’s about me, so I’m calling it Robson Quiz. If yours is about hockey, call it Hockey Quiz, etc.

Press Save

 

That first blank slide is set up to be a title slide with a box for the title and a subtitle

Fill in your Quiz title in the title box and your name in the subtitle box

You can add new slides for your questions with the New Slide button. You can change the layout of the slide if you wish by clicking the triangle and choosing a different layout. For this project, I usually just choose either Title Slide or Title and Content. Content with Caption would also work if you want pictures on your slides.

 

The MOST IMPORTANT thing for you to do is to get your questions figured out and those slides created. Normally I’d get you to do those before you do any work prettying things up, but you can save yourself a bit of work by copying slides, so I’ll demonstrate some of those steps now.

 

IMPORTANT: Always change your font! I WILL take off marks if I spot Calibri on any of your slides, so take the time to change the font EVERYWHERE!

 

To change that plain, boring, white background, go into the Design menu/tab:

Again, you’ll see some fancy, pretty options and you’ll want to click those. DON’T!!!

Instead, choose Format Background

There are plenty of ways to change that background on your slides

The first one is Solid fill, which fills the background with a solid colour

Choose any colour you like. Go ahead, it’s FUN!

Next you could choose Gradient fill. That’s a fun one

That creates a background where colours kind of blend together. It comes up with this blend from white to blue:

But you should customize it and choose your own colours!

It comes up with 4 little bookmarks that can be customized. You can click on each of those little pointers and choose a new colour

If you don’t need 4 colours there (and really, why would you?), you can delete one by clicking the little pointer with a red X on it:

You can choose your colours and move the little pointers around as much as you like to customize your gradient:

Next you could choose Picture or texture fill. This is a really fun one…

You can, if you wish, find your own HIGH QUALITY picture to put in the background OR click Online… and look for one (recommended)

These ones are even Creative Commons, so you can legally use them without stealing anything!

Choose from one of the many categories of photos:

Choose a photo you like

and click Insert

But there’s a PROBLEM with using photos in the background! They make your text REALLY hard to read, so you have to do some work to fix that!

 

The first way to fix it is by changing the colour of the text (and don’t forget to change that Font if you haven’t!):

You may also wish to move your text around to a better part of the photo by clicking on the edge of the text box and moving it.

You could also fill in the text box to make your text MUCH easier to read. Click on the text box:

and choose Format

You could change the Shape Fill

While you’re at it, why not change the Shape Outline

You might also wish to change the Weight (thickness) of the outline

Another cool way of making your slide look great is by properly centering everything. If you select a text box (or shape or picture or anything else)

You could also choose Arrange and then have the program put the box/shape/picture right in the middle of the page horizontally:

or vertically

You could even select your Title box, hold down Shift, and select the subtitle (name) box and Align the two items together

 

You may also wish to add some pictures on top of your slides. The photos in the background can make the text hard to read and the text on top makes the pictures hard to see, so sometimes it’s better to have your photos beside the text instead of under it.

Just like in Word, you could download a photo off of the Internet and could Insert it onto your slide. As with before, make sure that you are downloading good quality images if you are going to do things this way.

Even better than that, you could use the Online Pictures that we explored for your slide background. These ones have a couple of benefits. These ones are guaranteed to be good quality, and these ones are ones that you have permission to use as you want. Most photos you download from the internet are copyrighted and you could potentially get into trouble for using them, but the ones in the Online Pictures library are licensed for you to use, so go ahead!

You can go into the Insert menu/tab and click Online Pictures

And then explore the same categories as before

You can also insert little icon images which can be kind of fun. These might make neat buttons for you to use to click on to advance your slides

again there are different categories to explore

Something new that’s pretty fun is that you can add 3D models to your slides now as well. Some of them are even animated, so they move when you’re looking at your slideshow.

Remember to only use these if they make sense with the content on your slide. For me, adding an astronaut would make absolutely no sense with anything in my quiz, so I wouldn’t keep it, but just to show you:

Because it’s 3D, you can rotate it around to position it however you like, and this one is animated, so the astronaut kind of floats on the slide.

 

In order for the viewer to navigate through your show, they will need some kind of button to click on to advance to the next slide.

In the Insert menu/tab, click on Shapes

 

TWO choices: (YOU DO NOT NEED BOTH, just one)

1. Choose an arrow or shape that will represent your “Next” button

Click and drag out to draw the shape

Take the time to go into Format and change the Shape Fill and Shape Outline

You should also let people know what the shape is for, so you should add a text box and let them know that they need to click the shape to advance

 

 

The other option is to choose something called an Action Button

When you choose an Action Button, it’s automatically set up to link to another slide or address. We’ll go into this later, so just ignore that box for now.

Don’t forget to customize the Shape Fill/Outline

 

Your second slide should look different than the first. Please choose a different background or change the look of your text boxes, buttons, etc.

You may either create a new slide

Or you may duplicate the first slide and make significant changes.

To duplicate a slide, you can either right-click on it and choose Duplicate Slide

Or go into the Insert menu, click the triangle below New Slide, and choose Duplicate Selected Slides

 

The two slides should look different

The second slide basically tells people what they are looking at/doing.

 

From there, you just need to add at least 5 slides with multiple choice questions. Give each question at least 3 different options as answers. These slides DO NOT NEED a shape or button, because people will have to click on the answers to proceed.

Come up with 5 creative, interesting, and fun questions for yourself!

You also need ONE slide that tells people they got the wrong answer. There will be a button on this slide that will allow the viewer to go back and try again, so feel free to add text that says “Try Again” or something like that

You also need a “Right” answer slide for every question. You need at least 5 questions, so at least 5 slides like this. This slide will direct people to answer the next question.

NOTE: It’s fun for me to learn a bit more about you by doing this, so if you want to add a little bit of information or an explanation to your “Correct” slides, please do so! Tell me a bit more about yourself!

The last slide will tell people that the quiz is over and offer them the option to either quit or try again

Make sure you SAVE your work and move on to Step 2!

Here’s your chance to show me your PowerPoint skills! PowerPoint is one of the most popular programs in the world because it’s so quick and easy to create impressive looking presentations without a lot of training or experience.

Here’s your chance to show me what you already know or what you can figure out on your own.

Make me a PowerPoint slideshow about a topic that you are interested in and know a lot about. If you’re a fan of hockey or dogs or Pokemon or Crypto Currency, teach me something by putting together a PowerPoint slideshow with some impressive images and information!

This one is for fun and to show me what you already know, as well as to let me know more about yourself. If you haven’t used the program a lot before, don’t worry, see what you can figure out and come up with something that looks good to you.

We’ll create a more detailed presentation together in class, where I’ll show you a few things that you probably didn’t know that PowerPoint could even do. For now, let’s see what you know, can figure out, and are interested in!

Important steps:

1. Open the program

2. Make sure you are saving your file in OneDrive

3. Have fun!

 

The new stuff that I add to my teacher site (your project instructions, for example) comes in the form of a POST.  My posts look like this: http://www.misterjrobson.com/blog/

Those POSTS stay there and don’t change either, but new stuff gets added and the newest posts appear at the top of the page so you don’t always have to scroll through a bunch of stuff that you’ve already seen.

Let’s create your first post! Click on Posts:

You’ll see that there’s one Sample Post already there. Let’s just Trash that one and add our own:

Each project from here on will have its own post explaining your work. Each time you finish a project, you’ll go to Add New and create a new post with title being the name of the project that you’re posting

Each time you make a post, you have the opportunity to organize your posts into categories. On my teacher site, I have a different category for each of my classes, so that different classes see different content, and you Computer Literacy folks don’t have to scroll through the stuff for my LA or SS classes.

By default, your posts are in the category of Uncategorized. YUCK! Never leave a post Uncategorized!

You want to Add New Category to create the correct one:

Call it ICT Projects or something like that:

And then, most importantly, ALWAYS check your posts to make sure that they are properly categorized! Never post anything Uncategorized, because it means DISORGANIZED, and we don’t want that at all!

To post your work, OPEN the file! Start with your trading card. Once it’s open, make sure that you zoom out so that you can see your entire card. I like to go under View and choose One Page:

Now make sure that you can see your entire card.

You’re going to use a program called Greenshot to take a picture of your work. Greenshot should already be running on your computer. All you should have to do is press Print Screen, and a crosshairs should show up. You place that crosshairs at a corner of your work, CLICK and DRAG a box around whatever you want to take the picture of, and then save the file.

To add it to your site, click Add Media

Then Upload Files

Then either drop your file onto the page or click Select Files and browse for the picture you want to place into your post.

Once it’s done uploading, you should automatically see it in your Media Library

There are some options you can change if you wish, including the Title and the Attachment Display Settings:

When you’ve got your settings the way you want them, click Insert Into Post:

Then, down below, you will write a bit about your project:

Every time you post a new project, you will answer 3 questions:

1) Describe the project. Tell me about what you were supposed to create, what was supposed to be included, and what new things you might have had to learn/do.

2) What do you like about your work? What are you most proud of? Come on, celebrate your achievements! If you aren’t proud of your work, FIX IT so that you are! Explain why you like your work or what stands out as looking most interesting/impressive.

3) No matter how great your work is, there’s something that COULD be better. If you had all of the time in the world or if you had to do this project again for whatever reason, what would you try to do better? There must be something! If you say “Nothing” that will also describe the mark that you will get for this question!

 

Once again check and make sure that your post is going in the right Category, then click Publish and you’re done!

 

 

 

Before dropping this off, make sure that you’ve included everything you need on your site. Below is the rubric for the assignment. Make sure that you have done all of the following:

Knowledge/Skills:
Theme changed from default /1
Title/Tagline are set and appropriate /1
“Widgets” have been modified to remove/hide useless sections (meta, recent comments, etc.) /1
Home page created and properly named /1
Changed so that site opens to a Static Front Page (welcome page) /1
Site purpose complete /1
Hyperlink created  /1
Properly inserted Unsplash creative commons photos with attribution information /1
Trading Card post created and filled out /1
Created descriptive/useful post category/categories /1
DEDUCTION: Sample Page or Post still there
BONUS: Extra effort/extra widgets/goodies included
TOTAL /10

Design & Planning:
Chose and Applied Effective and Appropriate Theme /1
Chose descriptive and appropriate Title/Tagline /2
Welcome page provides an effective and appropriate welcome to the site – reflects purpose /3
Found effective images and inserted appropriately /1
Site is organized and attractive looking /3
BONUS: Extra appeal/WOW
TOTAL /10

Once you’ve done all of that, you are ready to drop off a link to your site. Please follow these directions:

Before leaving your site, make sure that you are looking at the front of your webpage. The address should look something like this : http://jrobson2023.edublogs.org/

There should be nothing after the .org other than a slash. If you see anything else there, click on your site identity to get back to your landing page. Click on the address of your site  and copy it (either right click and Copy or press Ctrl and C on your keyboard.

Once you’ve copied the address of your site:

Log in to OneDrive

 

Click on the folder with your name

Once you are in your folder, click on + New near the top of your screen. Select Link

You can create and edit Links directly inside of OneDrive. Best of all, they save automatically and they’re already in your OneDrive folder, so you can’t really lose them.

A new box will open.

Paste the address of your site into that box

You should now see a link to your site, with the extension .url in your hand in folder. I will go check your site and will surely be impressed!