Research on the Internet Preparing for a PowerPoint Presentation

Contents Contents Locating Information Taking Notes Bibliography Information Locating Images Saving Images Creating the Outline Storyboard Contents These topics can be covered in any order depending on the experience of the students. Some students may already know how to take notes or save images.

Locating Information Create your own links page Kid-Safe Search Engines Supervised searches Advanced searches Boolean Searches For young students, creating your own links page will make locating the information much easier for them. Use your school web site or one of the many free services available at sites such as Yahoo Geocities. Kid-Safe search engines prevent access to any objectionable material, but sometimes the material is still too difficult for students to read and understand. Supervised searches can be conducted using any search engine. Some (Google & AltaVista) can be set up to block some material. Blocking software on your server will prevent most objectionable pages. Students will need to learn to skim descriptions to select only pages that are on topic. Advanced searches allow you to be more specific in key words and websites to be included or omitted from the search. Boolean searches use Boolean logic to narrow the search.

Taking Notes Requires switching applications Browser & word processor Copy and paste May want a question sheet Print for highlight & rewrite Always have students save their notes page to their own directory or disk before they start. It should be in a special folder for use during the research and report project. Students will need to be taught to switch from one application to another without closing. Highlight desired text and copy in browser. On notes page, paste the text. Save before returning to browser Younger students may need a question page. It could have general questions they need to answer about their topic. It can be the same questions for each student, but they will answer it for their specific topic. If all are doing an animal report, they might each need to include the Latin name of the animal, the habitat, size, color, diet, etc. When completed, students can print the page and then use a highlighter to select pertinent information. Then they can use the notes page to write their outline. This also helps prevent plagarism.

Bibliography Information Copy & paste information to notes Author's Name Title of Site or Page Name of Institution or Organization Date of Visit & Last Update <URL of Page> The bibliographic information should be included with all notes copied and pasted from the web. The author’s name can be difficult and sometimes impossible to locate. Apparently not everyone with a web page wants to make sure you know who wrote it. The Title of the site or page is usually at the top, and often in the title bar. The name of the institution or organization may be prominent at either the top or bottom of the page. You may need to go to the base of the URL to locate the institution. The date of the visit is the current date. Site update may be difficult to find. URL is the web address and will always start with http://

Locating Images Many will be on information pages Image searches Include name of image file and bibliographic information on notes. Can crop or alter images in photo editing application. Most of the time, students will locate enough images on the same pages where they find the information they need. If they still need images, students can use an image search engine. The name of the image and the bibliographic information for the site where it came from should be included on the notes page. If you have an image editing program such as PhotoShop, PhotoStudio, or Graphic Converter, you can crop images or alter them to better fit your presentation.

Saving Images Mac: click and hold PC: right click Netscape: “Save this Image as…” Explorer: “Download Image to Disk” Save all images in one location. Be sure all images are saved in a single location where you will also be saving your PowerPoint.

Creating the Outline Standard outline form Roman Numeral represents one slide Can use a tool such as Inspiration to create an image map Use notes to add information The basic information in the outline is what will go on the slides. This is usually only the information represented by a Roman Numeral and by a capital letter. Additional information can be placed in the “notes” section of the presentation.

Storyboard May want to have students create a storyboard Rough sketch each slide Include color information A storyboard is useful for organizing information. It should include a title for each slide and a sketch of the layout and any images to be used. Including a note about text and background colors is also useful.