Digital Presentations - 7^th and 8^th grade elective

This course teaches students how to harness the information available on the World Wide Web.  Students will use the Internet and selected online reference sources to develop thoughtful and creative research based products that are presented using Publisher, PowerPoint, HyperStudio, Front Page express and VideoBlender.  Students will create clay animations by forming clay characters and using the digital camera to take pictures.  The images will be used to animate a historical event and a children's story.  Students will use Front Page (a web publishing utility) to plan and produce web pages for publication.  Students can elect the course a second time with permission of the teacher.  Second time student projects will reflect the students' interests and emerging skills

Basic units of study:

• Multimedia {HyperStudio}
• Web Page Design {MicroSoft Front Page}
• Clay Animation {Video Blender }
• Desktop Publishing {MicroSoft Publisher}

Multimedia {HyperStudio}

• Apply a variety of animation principles.
• Create, edit or modify digitized sound and add it to a presentation
• Apply special effects to digitized pictures and add it to a presentation.
• Add digitized videos/movies to a presentation
• Use objects, backgrounds, layers and colors to liven up their cards
• Customize projects using design functions and techniques
• Create projects that use testing features and informational surveys
• Create an organized well planned project from design to execution

WebPage Design {MicroSoft Front Page}

• Understand how web editors work to create HTML tagging
• Start and organize a new web site
• Change font size, style and alignment to create headings
• Add text to a web page
• Insert pictures into a web page
• Create tables to arrange information
• Create links to other pages
• Include easy to understand navigation features
• Customize the way pages are displayed in a browser
• Create a complete web site from scratch to publication

Clay Animation {Video Blender }

• Explore the concept persistence of vision used to create an illusion of movement
• Watch a professionally animated video
• Create a story for their clay animation
• Create a storyboard to map out the action of their story
• Build a clay character
• Create a scene for their character
• Create a sequence of still pictures to build a movement of their character
• Edit their images using a Graphic Converter
• Create a Clay Animation
• Create a Clay Animation presentation in a multimedia authoring program

Desktop Publishing  {MicroSoft Publisher}

• Build publications with design elements properly aligned vertically, horizontally, and in relationship to each other.
• Create and work with text frames and text
• Use tables to arrange information in a systematic way
• Illustrate their publication with images
• Use various design effects to create sharp looking publications